


Ordinary World

by Laurawrzz



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Doctor Whump, Drama, F/M, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Timey-Wimey, War, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-18
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-20 07:17:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 64,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurawrzz/pseuds/Laurawrzz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A malfunctioning TARDIS has sent the Doctor, Jackie and Rose back through time to become a second out of sync to a deserted version of Earth. Without the TARDIS, the only possible way back is the rift, but maybe this deserted version of Earth ISN'T so deserted as the Doctor and Rose are forced onto separate sides of a War...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Out of Time, Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely new.
> 
> I've got no idea where I'm going with this, I don't know how often it's going to be updated and there's going to be lotsa epic whump. So, business as usual, then!
> 
> I'm going to make an effort NOT to make this TenRose (for once) but I can't help it if there are minor suggestive themes :o
> 
> I've rated it M for the amount of swearing, some very dark themes and much whumpage. I can promise there's not gonna be any excessive smut (maybe. Hopefully.)

Staying at Jackie's flat for the night wasn't something the Doctor had really planned to do when he took Rose back home after their parallel world crash. As it transpired the TARDIS had decided she didn't want anything to do with him and Rose and had completely locked herself up to calibrate her systems back to normal with utterly no warning whatsoever.

Since he had parked the now immovable TARDIS in the flat so Rose could get to her mum quicker, Jackie now had a giant blue box in her living room blocking off the TV (and consequently Eastenders) which was  _not_ something she had taken very kindly too. That and the fact her friend had come to the flat two hours after their arrival, and with a blue box in the living room Jackie had had to make up some bizarre reason as to why her front room had spontaneously become so inaccessible.

Needless to say, she wasn't happy with him in the slightest, and it was a combination of these things that explained exactly  _why_  the Doctor was lying on the sofa in Jackie's flat with his legs dangling over the end at 3am on a Friday night.

He had  _utterly_ nothing to do, and he was  _completely_ bored. Rose and Jackie were in bed, the TARDIS was inaccessible and he'd been given a strict lecture on how it wasn't etiquette to mess with people's TVs, have a fry up or start practising his Uranian Monk Chants whilst people were trying to sleep. Not that he'd  _needed_  the lecture... not after last time.

But Rose, the forward-thinking woman she was, had run out to the shop before they'd closed to buy him a few puzzle books. Which was a nice thought, and all twelve books  _did_  occupy him for about forty minutes between them before they were all finished cover-to-cover.

Yet he stillhad a minimum of around three hours before there was even a glimmer of possibility that one of them would get up. Even Jackie would do. Anyone,  _anything_ to have a conversation with. Even if a stray dog walked in right now he'd probably try and engage it in a healthy debate on the current political situation on Kasbola Minor.

So eventually he'd decided to try and  _think_ his way through three hours. Have a little personal thought trail progressing from fascinating subject to fascinating subject. It used to work in the old days. In his fourth body he could go for  _days_  just lying on the floor thinking. That didn't seem to work anymore, and it was since his regeneration. He liked talking too much – that was this body's problem. He liked people, he liked company, he liked attention and right now he liked the idea of running into Rose's room, resetting her clock and pretending it was time to get up. But it probably wasn't etiquette to do that either, so the thought was somewhat fleeting.

It was 3:20am before he decided enough was enough. He had to do  _something._ So he got up, grabbed his coat and made for the front door to take a little walk, but before he got there the TARDIS suddenly emitted a quiet 'vworp'. It took him a few moments to process what that might mean before a huge, joyous smile appeared on his face as the thought occurred to him that the TARDIS was ready to go...

He practically bounded back to the time machine, grabbing the handle, shoving in his key and pushing the door... But it didn't budge. She was still in lock-down.

He sighed, the joyous feeling instantaneously crushed as quickly as it had come. He gazed at her, and reached out to stroke her. But what he wasn't expecting was another vworp and abrupt feeling of his hand  _sticking_ to the exterior...

Somewhat alarmed, he tried to pull it off but it was  _completely_  stuck. In slight disbelief he tried again, but nope, it was still stuck.

"Oh, this is not good," he muttered to himself, trying again and again to pull his hand off. The TARDIS was suddenly vworping quietly and constantly, the light flashing around and around in a crazy disco. The exterior was slowly fading, and pretty soon the Doctor realised he was slowly fading too...

"Really not good!" he yelped, and tried pulling with the entire weight of his body. He scrambled to reach for the closest door-frame but he was a couple of inches too short. Instinctively he tried levering himself by placing a foot on the TARDIS to push himself off, but rapidly figured that had been a bit of a stupid idea as his foot was also now stuck...

He was fast fading now. There was only one thing he could do. He inhaled a breath, turned his head as far left as it could go and opened his mouth to yell... "RO-"

He didn't get to finish her name, as he was rudely interrupted by four almost simultaneous things - a quick flash of blinding light, a quiet explosion, his arm and foot both propelling off of the TARDIS and the strange feeling that he was flying... Flying – he very quickly realised – into the kitchen wall.

There wasn't much he could do about that, really.

* * *

Jackie Tyler had woken up at 7am and had gone straight to kitchen, almost tripping over an apparently asleep Doctor in the doorway. She'd huffed and puffed a little, giving him a light kick to try and get him to wake up and find a better place than a doorway to sleep but he hadn't even reacted. Bloody typical.

There was one blessing at least; that bloody box of his was gone from in front of the TV, so she made tea and toast and sat down to watch the morning news - but the TV was nothing but static. Broken! At least it was still under warranty. She sighed, ate her toast, drank her tea, and  _still_ the Doctor hadn't so much as twitched. That was odd.

Reasoning it was probably just one of the many weird alien things he did, she decided it would be better to wake him up so he didn't get trod on by Rose in her usual utterly oblivious morning haze. Finishing up her tea, she moved over to him and knelt down to shake his shoulder.

"Doctor?" she tried, but he wasn't reacting at all. A little concerned, she checked his eyes, and instead realised he was sweating quite badly. His pulse was going like a marching band on speed and when she lifted his head she realised the carpet was stained with blood.

Her hand went to her mouth as she gasped in horror. "Doctor? Wake up!"

He didn't.

She got up and ran to Rose's room, bursting in to find her daughter splayed across the bed fast asleep with her hair everywhere.

She shook her quickly, panicked. "Rose!"

"What?" Rose groaned, not even opening her eyes.

"It's the Doctor, he's not wakin' up..."

"Yeah, just kick him..." Rose murmured, and buried her head under the covers again.

"I did," Jackie said anxiously. "He's sweatin' and bleedin', I think he hit his head..."

Rose sat up abruptly, eyes wide and hair everywhere. Within seconds she was up and out of the door to the Doctor still lying on the floor.

"Doctor?" she asked anxiously, slapping him lightly on the face but his head just rolled. "Doctor, wake up. Wake up!"

Jackie was already instinctively moving to the phone to call for help, but just as she finished dialling Rose quickly stopped her.

"No, Mum, no ambulance, remember?" she said, but her Mum had stopped listening to her, just listening to the phone. "Mum!" Rose yelped. "Don't do that!"

"No, sweetheart..." Jackie said slowly, looking at Rose, before suddenly holding out the phone to her daughter. "Listen."

"What?" Rose asked, both confused and annoyed. "Mum, hang up the phone!"

"Listen to it!" Jackie demanded, thrusting the phone to the girl again.

Rose huffed a little and took it, pressing it to her ear.

" _The number you have dialled is not in service..."_

It took her a moment to realise what was wrong before she slowly looked up at her mum, jaw agape.

"999 isn't in service...?"

"Love, the TV doesn't work either..."

"What!?" Rose looked up towards the direction of the TV, but she wasn't looking at it. She was looking at the clear space in front of it. "... Wait, where's the TARDIS?"

Jackie could only shrug. Rose looked at her, then at the Doctor, and then sprinted towards the front door to go onto the balcony, checking the only other place the TARDIS would most likely be.

"She's not..." Rose began to yell back to her mum, but trailed off as she realised something else. There was  _utterly_  no one down in the street, and there were no passing cars either. And when she listened, there was nothing to listen  _to._ No traffic, no people, not even any birdsong...

The world was completely silent.

"HELLO!" Rose yelled as loudly as she could... but utterly nothing but her own voice echoed back to her. "HELLO!" she tried again, listening hard... But nothing. "Oh my god," she croaked in utter disbelief.

"Rose?" Jackie asked from behind her.

"Mum!" Rose spun around, her eyes wide. "There's no one else! It's just us!"

"What?"

"God, Mum, I think we're the only people on Earth."

"Don't be stupid, how can..."

"Just look!"

Jackie did so, and within seconds had turned almost completely white. "Bloody hell... This was  _'im,_ wasn't it!" she yelped, utterly panicked. "What the 'ell are we gonna do!?"

Rose ignored her, running back in to the Doctor and kneeling down next to him once again. "Doctor, wake up!"

Thankfully, this time he  _did_  begin to stir, his brow furrowing before he let out a pained moan and opened his eyes.

Rose sighed in absolute relief. "Doctor... Somethin' is..." She stopped, frowning at the sight of him. "God, are you all right?"

He winced, hand moving to his head. "It's nothing, just hit my head."

"What happened to you?" she asked him, helping him to sit up.

"TARDIS," he grunted. "She made a noise so I checked her, got stuck, flew backwards and got knocked out."

"She's gone, I can't find her. And... so has everyone else. I mean, everything, Doctor, everyone's gone."

"What?"

"We're... Well, I think... I think we're the only people on Earth."

The Doctor's eyes widened, scrambling to his feet using a combination of Rose and the wall. He jogged through the still open front door, checking the street below. After a moment he backed away, hand still on his head with his eyes wide and searching.

"Oh no," was all he said.

"What is it?" Rose asked, coming up behind him. "Is this to do with the TARDIS?"

"Maybe," he said, but his expression morphed into a frown as he thought about that. "Probably," he amended, and then thought some more. "... Um, yeah, it is."

"Where are we, then?"

"Still Earth," he said. "Definitely still Earth. We haven't moved, at least... not physically ourselves."

"Then how did we get here?"

"Never mind how we got 'ere, 'ow the 'ell are we gettin' back?" Jackie's voice suddenly asked from behind them, a little panicked. "You did this, so fix it!" she yelped, pointing at the Doctor.

"Not quite as simple as that, Jackie..." the Doctor muttered, pushing past Rose to go back inside the flat.

"Are we in a parallel world?" Rose wondered, following.

"I don't think so," he said, frowning again as he stopped to examine the spot the TARDIS had been. "More like... some sort of time trap or... Or being out of sync."

"What you bloody goin' on about?" Jackie wanted to know. "Can we get back?"

Rose ignored her mum, crouching down next to the Doctor. "What d'you mean out of sync?"

"A second ahead or a second too slow..." he murmured. "Maybe some sort of... defence mechanism..."

"For god's sake, Doctor, what the  _bloody_ hell is goin' on?!" Jackie demanded to know, less panicked now and mainly just annoyed.

The Doctor sighed, getting up and turning to Jackie. "Right. Time flows linear to you. The sun rises, the sun sets, you wake up, eat beans on toast and go to bed, just like everyone and everything else in the world, yes? Imagine the possibility that you didn't. Imagine if you lived a second ahead, or second behind everyone else? Something happened when I touched the TARDIS, something that  _possibly_ knocked me out of sync into a different time flow..."

He suddenly stopped. Rose knew the signs of when he was thinking, so obediently remained silent. Unfortunately, Jackie didn't.

"We've gotta get back!" Jackie squeaked, switching back from annoyed to panicked in less than a nanosecond.

"Jackie, shut up," the Doctor said urgently, hand in the air.

Jackie looked incongruous. "Don't you tell me to..."

"Mum, shut up!" Rose demanded, and the Doctor closed his eyes to think again. Jackie did indeed shut up though began to slowly boil over for the good minute the Doctor spent thinking. Suddenly his eyes snapped open and he ran to the door.

"Get dressed, get some food," he ordered them.

"Where're we going?" Rose asked.

"The TARDIS is gone, and if we  _are_  out of sync I can't get us back without her. And I think, when we got knocked out of sync, she remained in normal time. The best place to go is Cardiff."

"Cardiff?!" Jackie repeated in disbelief.

"Mum, there's a rift there, sort of like a bridge between places," Rose explained quickly.

"What the hell does that mean?"

The Doctor groaned, exasperated. "Why did she have to come?" he whined quietly to the sky.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"

"Mum!" Rose yelped again, taking Jackie's arm. "Just get dressed, okay?"

Jackie just harrumphed and stormed into her room, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

Within ten minutes Rose was ready to go with a bag packed full of food, and was now waiting with the Doctor at the front door. Jackie was still in her room.

"Come on," the Doctor moaned, banging his head against the wall.

Rose decided to take his mind off of it. "So, why has the TARDIS done this to us?"

"I... I think she was saving my life."

"What?"

He gazed at her, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded. "She was still rebuilding when I touched her, and for some reason she was rebuilding the outside too. Which meant all the anti-matter that makes the TARDIS so big inside was all in the wrong places and my hand got trapped inside the matter itself. I became like an extra limb to her. If I'd stayed like that all the power inside of her would've completely burnt me inside-out. So she pushed me off... But she pushed me so hard I went into a different time completely."

Rose thought about that, and slowly began to frown.

He anticipated her next question. "No, I don't know why you and Jackie are here. It should just be me."

"Are you worried?"

"A little."

She looked at his thoughtful expression, and grinned. "You're really lovin' this, aren't ya?"

The Doctor's lips slowly began to turn up at the corners. "... A little," he repeated.

Rose giggled, just as Jackie came out of her room with hair and make-up all done. "What the 'ell are you two laughin' about?!"

"Nothin'," Rose said quickly. "You didn't need to do make up, Mum."

"We're going to Cardiff, not Soho," the Doctor muttered under his breath.

Rose snorted in a pathetic attempt to cover her laughter.

Jackie bristled slightly. "I'm gonna slap you in a minute," she said, but the Doctor was already out of the front door.


	2. Road Trip!

"Right," the Doctor began with an enthusiastic clap of his hands, standing in the middle of the estate gazing around. "Everyone scatter and look for a car."

Rose nodded and ran off, but Jackie just stood there, confused. "Why do we need a car?" she asked dumbly.

"Well, you're fully welcome to walk to Cardiff if you like," the Doctor replied airily.

Before Jackie could give him the promised slap there came a yell of, "got one!" from Rose. Jackie and the Doctor went to her instantly, and found her standing next to an open garage with a Renault Megane in it.

"Oh no," the Doctor said, wincing. "Not a Renault. That'll break the moment we get on the M4."

Rose rolled her eyes, and ran off again.

"So this rift thingy," Jackie began. "Once we get there, we can go straight back?"

"Maybe," the Doctor replied, running a hand through his hair. "I haven't quite figured it out yet but the rift is our only connection to normal time, so if we can get back the only way is through there."

There was a slight silence as Jackie took that in. "... You don't have a clue, do you?" she realised.

"Not really," the Doctor admitted.

"Doctor!" Rose yelled again.

Jackie sighed. "I don't know 'ow the 'ell she trusts you."

The Doctor just shrugged, grinned at her, and ran in the direction of Rose. Jackie sighed again and walked after them, reaching the Doctor and Rose standing next to an undamaged red Toyota Corolla in the street. The Doctor moved to the driver door and sonicked the handle. With a polite clunk, all the doors unlocked. The Doctor got into the driver's seat, Rose climbed into passenger seat and Jackie went to the driver's door, seeing if she could help.

With another flash of the sonic the engine suddenly revved, and the Doctor looked up at Jackie. "Get in."

Jackie just stood there, waiting. The Doctor raised a confused eyebrow at her.

"Get out, then," she said.

"What?"

"You're not seriously gonna drive, are ya?" she said, almost laughing.

"Umm... Yes?" the Doctor wondered.

"You can't drive!"

"Yes, I can."

"You 'aven't got a license!"

"I don't think anyone's going to be checking!"

"Mum, just get in, yeah?" Rose told her, already belted up.

Jackie folded her arms, holding her ground. "There's no way in hell I'm lettin' 'im drive!"

A short while later the car was on the road, Rose was in the passenger seat, the Doctor was driving and Jackie was in the back seat clinging to a handle with white knuckles and a terrified expression plastered on her face.

"Slow down!" she screamed as he took a blind corner at 50 mph.

"Mum, relax, we're not exactly gonna get arrested, yeah?" Rose put in to reassure her. "We're the only people on Earth."

"No, we're gonna crash!" Jackie shrieked.

Rose looked at the Doctor, who looked at her, and said nothing as he took another blind corner at speed. Rose leant forward to the glove compartment in front of her and had a look through.

"Oh, this guy's got some good albums," she said, pulling out a bunch of CDs. "Deep Purple?"

The Doctor shrugged, indifferent. She put the CD into the slot...

"Nobody gonna take my car, I'm gonna race it to the groooound! Nobody gonna beat my car, it's gonna break the speed of soooound!"

"Oh God!" Rose yelped as Jackie went utterly rigid.

"Oooh, it's a killing machine, it's got everything! Like a driving power big fat tyres, and everything! I LOVE it! And I NEED-"

Rose finally found the eject button, and the CD stopped and pinged out. She looked back at her Mum, shrugging apologetically before putting a different CD in.

"Stop! Whoa yes, wait a minute Mr Postman!"

"Oh, I love this song!" the Doctor enthused. "Way-ay-ay-ait Mr Postman! Please Mr Postman look and see, ooooh yeah, if there's a letter in your bag for me! Please, please Mr Poh-ostman! Why's it taking such a long time, oh yeah, for me to hear from that boy of mine!"

"Change it," Jackie demanded, glaring at the Doctor.

Rose rolled her eyes with grin, ejecting the CD again. The Doctor looked crushed. She giggled at his expression and put the next CD in.

"Came in from a rainy Thursday, on the avenue..."

"Oh, Duran Duran! I like them, leave it on," Jackie told Rose, and the Doctor groaned quietly.

"Thought I heard you talking softly..."

"We're stickin' with it," Rose told him seriously, and he groaned again.

"I turned on the lights, the TV, and the radio... Still I can't escape the ghost of you... What has happened to it all? Crazy, some are saying... Where is the life that I recognise? Gone away... But I won't cry for yesterday, there's an ordinary world, somehow I have to find... And as I try to make my way, to the ordinary world, I will learn to survive..."

It was about the time the Doctor turned off of the A4 and went in the direction of Ealing that Rose had to really consider the fact he had absolutely no idea where he was going.

"Need a map?" she wondered, Duran Duran still pumping out of the speakers.

"Fine, thanks," the Doctor told her, running his hand through his hair and reading the signs intently.

"Y'know, if you're lost, you can just come out with it. We won't judge you, you come from a different planet. I'm totally sure you know all your planet's roads back to front, yeah?"

"I'm not lost!" the Doctor insisted, his voice raising a little.

"He's such a man," Jackie sighed.

"I'm not lost, all right?" the Doctor practically yelled, eyes still fixed to the road. "Look, I've got a theory and we're going to Ealing."

Rose blinked in surprise. "Sarah?"

He nodded. "If you two are here with me then maybe Sarah's here too... Maybe even all my other companions, maybe they've all been left behind. And that's going to be a big problem trying to get around the world."

Jackie stared at him. "How many do you have?"

"I mean my old companions."

Jackie's eyes narrowed, and Rose dropped her head in her hands. "Please don't have this conversation..." she whined.

"No, I'm interested," Jackie insisted. "So these companions... Are all of them girls?"

The Doctor stiffened slightly. "Um... not all of them..."

"Oh god," Rose muttered.

"So you go around the universe, pickin' up woman after woman?"

"No, I..."

"And what model number is my Rose?"

"She's not!"

"Oh god," Rose said again, head still in her hands.

"Oh look, we're here!" the Doctor suddenly yelled, hitting the brakes and bolting out of the car in a split second. Rose decided to follow him pretty sharpish before her mother got in another word.

"Sarah!" the Doctor yelled, ringing the doorbell and knocking and the door. "Sarah, are you in?"

He tried the door handle, and to his complete surprise it was completely unlocked. He stepped inside, ready to shout for Sarah again but instead found a very familiar metal canine sitting in the middle of the room.

"K9!" the Doctor exclaimed, jogging to the robot dog. "K9!"

"System restarting!" K9 said, raising his head with his red eye flashing.

"Good boy!" the Doctor enthused, scratching the metal dog behind the ears. "Where's Sarah?"

"Master! Mistress Sarah placed me here in order to playback her recorded message stored on my hard drive! Would you like me to play the message?"

"Yes, please."

"Affirmative! Executing!" K9 said, there was a small whir of mechanics and suddenly Sarah's voice was in the air.

"Doctor, if you're here listening to this, and I really hope you are, then you must know what's going on. I woke up this morning and it was only me and K9 in the entire street, I thought perhaps the entire world. Shortly afterwards K9 detected a communication attempt on an alternative frequency, and there was a man on the other end. He says he knows you. He also said that you would most likely head for a rift in Cardiff, so that's where I'm going. The man's name is Jack, by the way. I'm going to trust him because, well, this could only be something to do with you."

"Message ends, master!" K9 told him.

"... Jack?" Rose repeated. "Does she mean... Jack?"

"Probably," the Doctor muttered, but he didn't really seem to be interested in that.

"But how can that be him, Doctor?"

The Doctor would have evaded the question, but didn't need to as Jackie had finally reached them, and was staring at K9.

"... Is that a dog," she eventually said, stating the sentence more than asking it.

"Yes," the Doctor replied.

"Like a robot?"

"Yes."

Jackie frowned a little. "I thought robots were s'posed to be all streamlined and stuff?"

"Oi!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Year 5000, this was cutting edge!" He looked at Jackie, and heaved a sigh. "Just no pleasing you humans, is there? I show you sophisticated technology from 3000 years in your future and all you can say is, 'he's so disco' and 'make him streamlined'... I mean, really!"

"All right, touchy," Jackie muttered.

The Doctor rolled his eyes, turning back to K9. "K9, can you make a link to the TARDIS through the divided temporal schism using her base codes and scan her medical biodata files and then perform a wide area scan?"

"It is possible, master!" K9 replied. "However, the energy required is far too much for my power cells in the current form of the temporal schism!"

"Oh, he's got a voice," Jackie realised, staring at the dog.

The Doctor chose to ignore her. "No problem. I need you to copy the biodata files to your hard drive, then use all the information to do a worldwide scan for any matches."

"Affirmative, master!" K9 said, and the little whir and falling of his head indicated he'd started. The Doctor quickly got out his sonic and took off the side of K9, buzzing some strange round orange objects inside constantly with the sonic.

"What's he doin'?" Rose wondered.

"Checking to see if any of my other companions are stranded here in this time-strain," he said. "The TARDIS automatically registers simple biodata of anyone that goes inside the TARDIS for tracking them inside her."

"Was that the scan thing you made me do?"

He shook his head. "No, that was a deep scan. If you're a long term companion I do a deep scan. It's a safety precaution. If anything ever happened and I needed to medically treat you I've got all of your biodata on hand."

Rose nodded understandingly, but Jackie seemed to once again twist that into some kind of threat to her daughter by the expression on her face. Thankfully she didn't get the chance to say what she may have been thinking when K9's head snapped up again.

"Scan complete, master! I have detected five matches in this world's radius! Master, Mistress Sarah, Mistress Rose, Jackie Tyler, Jack Harkness!"

"Good dog, K9. Do you have rolling co-ordinates for Sarah's location?"

"Negative, master!" K9 chimed, his little ears waggling.

"Okay, you're with us, then. C'mon, boy!" he said, and jogged out of the door.

"Affirmative!" K9 replied, following him with his tail waggling happily.

Jackie looked at Rose. "... This is too weird for one day."

"Seems about average to me," Rose replied with a shrug, and made out of the door after the one man and his dog.


	3. Not In Kansas Anymore

They were back in the car with Mark Owen now on the CD player, the Doctor seemingly a lot happier now he had his dog.

"Right, no one else, just us five," he was saying, in the middle of one of his rants. "Which is good, very good... But also bad, very bad."

"Bad?" Rose echoed.

"I have no idea why you're all here. Nothing links you apart from you all knowing me, but lots of people know me so why aren't they here? I've been trying to think but I can't come up with anything."

"I guess we should just be glad we've got everyone and know where they are, yeah?"

"I suppose," the Doctor replied, pulling up to a junction to decide what way to go.

"But what about Jack?" Rose tried again, just as the Doctor decided on left and pulled away. "I mean, I thought that he-URGH!"

She strangled out the word as the Doctor suddenly hit the brakes, the two humans thrown forward in their seats.

"What the hell you doin'?!" Jackie yelped after she'd managed to recover.

"Did you see that?" he asked, staring at the road in front.

"See what?" Rose asked seriously.

"I thought I saw..." he began but trailed off, eyes narrowing as he scanned the road.

"You thought you saw what?" Jackie wanted to know.

There was a silence, before the Doctor finally breathed, relaxed, and pulled off gently. "Nothing. Never mind."

"Going mad now, are we?" Jackie supposed, brushing herself down.

"Possibly," the Doctor muttered, barely paying attention to her as he pulled off.

* * *

They drove for another two minutes without talking, the sound of Mark Owen carrying them on their journey. There were about to turn onto the straight that would take them to the slip-road to the M4, when the Doctor slowed again, this time less abruptly.

"What is it  _now?"_ Jackie asked seriously, checking her watch.

The Doctor didn't answer, just reversing back to a turn off, gazing down the road. Instantly Jackie stopped protesting and instead croaked a very small but very shocked, "oh my god."

The buildings on the sides were burnt out and the material that had formed them scattered onto the street, as though they'd been hit by some kind of bomb. The road had crumbled, and the road was stained with blood – blood of the hundreds of bodies scattered around on it, as well as a few more bodies hanging out of the burnt-out buildings.

For a moment, all three just stared.

"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," the Doctor muttered.

"... That's not possible," Rose whispered pointlessly.

The Doctor climbed out of the car and to the closest body, bending down to examine it. Jackie and Rose had no choice but to follow, despite how sick they both felt at the sight. After a moment the Doctor went to the next body, and then the next. Finally he straightened up, and ran back to Jackie and Rose.

"Bomb," he said straight. "They must've all been in the buildings, they've been dead for about a month..." He looked a little pale. "We've got to go, now." And with that, he ran to the car.

Jackie and Rose exchanged a worried look, and quickly followed him. Jackie went to the driver's seat again.

"Get in the car, Jackie," the Doctor grated, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white.

"Let me drive," she pleaded. "Have a rest."

"GET! IN! THE! CAR!" he suddenly screamed directly at her, his eyes on fire. Jackie didn't dare to challenge him, and quickly got in. The second she'd closed the door the Doctor hit the accelerator and they were speeding off again at double the speed than before, straight onto the slip-road and onto the M4.

"Doctor? Who bombed those people?" Jackie suddenly asked quietly.

"I don't know," he muttered, tense.

"If we are stuck in another time to the rest of the world then... There can't be things like that here," Rose croaked.

"No, there can't."

"We have to be in a parallel world."

"We're not."

"Why not?"

"I told you, travel between parallel worlds is impossible."

"It wasn't so impossible yesterday."

"That was an accident."

" _This_ was an accident," she pointed out.

The Doctor's face turned again. "Look, Rose, this isn't a parallel world! Trust me!"

"All right, I believe you. But if those people died with a bomb that means... It means we're not the only people here."

"No, we're not," the Doctor confirmed.

"How can there be people livin' out of time?" Jackie asked seriously.

"I don't  _know_!" the Doctor yelled, slamming his hand on the steering wheel. "I don't know  _everything_ , all right?!"

Rose and Jackie fell utterly silent.

" _Thirty seconds_ _left to go, is this the end then? Message on your stereo, four minute warning... Everybody wants to know, what should we do? What would you do? What would you do, yeah..."_ the CD player buzzed.

"Turn that off!" the Doctor suddenly ordered in a shout, and Rose quickly ejected the disc. The player switched to radio and she was about to turn it off, when the radio began to automatically tune and it suddenly stopped on the frequency of 98.1...

" _Do... tatack... tenshal... iles... obs... m... eyko... ooman..."_

"What the hell?" Rose said with a gasp as the Doctor's head snapped to the radio. It was full of static, interference and breaking up, but that had definitely been a voice... "There's someone there!"

" _Pr... ithcaw... on..."_

The Doctor ignored the road for the moment, keeping the car straight down the motorway as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the sonic, buzzing the radio...

"DOCTOR!" Rose suddenly shrieked, and his head jerked up to her. She was pointing at the road ahead. He looked and instantly saw some kind of creature as big as the car itself charging straight towards them. The Doctor in his panic yanked the steering wheel to one side and hit the brakes, the car screeching as he dodged the creature and consequently lost complete control.

* * *

For some reason or another someone playing one of those really old songs like Jackie heard in the old World War One films, and it took her a moment to realise as she came to consciousness that it was playing on the car radio. She opened her eyes fully, and found herself in the exact situation she had nightmares about.

They'd crashed the car.

She quickly assessed her own damage, but apart from a blow to the head and a bit of whiplash all limbs and appendages seemed to be intact. Having reassured herself of her own situation, her thoughts instantly turned to the other two in the car. She looked up, and found her daughter swallowed in an air-bag in the passenger seat. Instantly she got out of the air and ran around to the front passenger side, her heart beating so hard in her chest it felt like it was going to break through her ribs...

The door wouldn't open, far too crushed in on itself. The window was shattered, so she reached in the scramble to deflate the air-bag.

"Rose!" she yelped went it went down, taking the young woman's hand. "Rose, wake up!"

She didn't. Jackie tried opening the car door from the inside, but it just wasn't happening. "Rose, sweetheart, please..."

Not the bat of an eyelid.

Jackie looked up to the unconscious Doctor, furious. "This is your fault!" she screamed, and instantly she didn't even know why she'd said that. Her face turned back down to despair as she stared at the blood running down his face. "Oh god, it's not, Doctor... I'm so sorry..."

His eyes suddenly flickered open, blinking a few times. He groaned and raised a hand to the side of his head, which came away covered in blood. Slightly confused, he lifted his head with a wince to look to his right, and found the place on the car window where his head had been resting was smashed outwards, as though the impact of his head had done that. Through his confused thoughts he wondered how that was possible, before a shriek of a  _very_ familiar voice came from his left.

"Doctor!" Jackie shrieked. "Thank god! Rose is hurt! Help her!"

The words 'Rose is hurt' rang in his ears like a fire alarm. He looked, and found his companion sitting there unconscious with Jackie looking in the window. He reached up immediately to check her neck for a pulse, leaving a smear of his own blood on her.

"She's alive," he grunted, hand going back to his head as he fumbled, disorientated, trying to get the broken seatbelt off of him. Eventually he managed it and pulled out his sonic, scanning her over. "No damage in... in her spine," he managed to say through his blinder of a headache, putting the sonic back in his pocket. "Need to... get her out."

"The door's stuck," Jackie wailed. "Doctor, please!"

"Working on it," he croaked, getting Rose's seatbelt off and taking her under the armpits. With every single ounce of strength he could muster he pulled her towards him, slowly but surely managing to drag her out of his door and onto the wet grass.

Jackie had already run around to meet them, taking her daughter and holding her carefully. "Doctor, what's wrong with her?!"

He checked her over, trying desperately to stop the double-vision his eyes seemed to want to see. "Head trauma," he finally said. "Fractured... fibula. Closed, simple."

" _Do_  somethin'!" Jackie begged.

Still lying on the floor, he slowly pulled out a white box of some kind with a green moon printed on the side. Still half-conscious he began to treat her, bandaging her up, splinting her leg and giving her a painkiller with Jackie knelt by her side, holding her hand so tightly.

Just as he finished Rose's eyes flickered open, moving from Jackie to the Doctor on his knees beside her, blood coating the side of his face looking as though his head was in the clouds.

"Doctor? Doctor, are you okay?" she asked anxiously, completely ignoring her mother.

He gave a dazed half-smile, raising a hand in the air. "Gimme a... a minute."

"What's happened to my leg?"

"Fractured it," the Doctor told her. "Gave you... a painkiller."

"You look like you need one," Rose said seriously, staring at him before her mum smothered her in hugs and kisses.

"Oh god, I thought I lost you, sweetheart!"

"Mum, get off," Rose dismissed, looking at the Doctor again. "Lemme help you."

"Amakay."

"Amakay? Amakay ain't even a word!" She sat up and reached for the green moon box. It was at that point the Doctor realised his protests were probably pointless and resigned to let Rose clean his face and bandage his head.

"This is... is probably a really stupid ques... question, but... did we crash?" he suddenly asked.

Jackie nodded. "The thing jumped at us... You don't remember?"

"No..." he muttered. "... What thing?"

"The creature thing," Jackie said. "It was so big, it came straight at the car."

"But... that's not... possible," the Doctor said weakly, and slightly redundantly.

"Try telling the car that," Rose muttered, finishing patching him up.

"We need to... to go," he said, struggling to his feet.

"But Rose can't walk," Jackie protested.

"K9 can..." he began, then suddenly trailed off, his eyes wide. "K9!"

He staggered over to the front area of the car, and stopped dead in front of a very destroyed K9. "No, K9..."

A loud buzzing came from the broken metal dog – an attempt to talk through a destroyed vocal unit. "... Mas... ter..."

"It's okay, I'll fix you..." the Doctor said quickly, picking up the dog and placing him upright on the grass. His head was all wonky, wires and drives spilling out his sides with several plates missing.

"Neg... a... tive... mas... ter..." K9 whined. "Com... plete... sys... tem... fail... ure..."

"You're just... just a bit damaged..." the Doctor practically begged him. "Keep your power cells running... It's just... It's just parts."

"Power... supply... fail... ing..."

"No, no, c'mon... Not again, Please, K9... I  _need_  you."

"Thank... you... mas... ter," K9 buzzed.

The Doctor closed his eyes, and swallowed. "I'm so sorry, K9. You were such a good dog."

K9 waggled his ears and his tail. "Aff... firm..." he tried, but his little voice was powering down. "Ma..."

The robot dog's head finally dropped.

For a moment the Doctor just stared at him, Jackie coming to stand behind him.

"C'mon, Doctor," Jackie said urgently, hands on hips. "We've gotta go, find another car. It's just a bloody robot dog. Make a new one."

The Doctor turned on her instantly, furious. "He  _wasn't_ 'just a bloody robot dog', he was  _my_ bloodyrobot dog!" he yelled in her face.  _"My_  robot dog that  _I_ rebuilt, that  _I_ programmed and that  _I_ brought back to life! He was  _not_  an appliance _,_ he wasn't daft or stupid,he was  _my_  dog!"

"Jesus Christ," Jackie muttered, staring at him with a slightly raised eyebrow.

"Mum, shut up,  _now_!" Rose yelled, on one foot and leaning on a tree. "We can't get like this, not now! We  _have_ to get to Cardiff and go back to the ordinary world! God knows what else is in this one!"

The Doctor and Jackie stared at each other in a stand-off for a moment, before the Doctor broke the gaze, turned and went back to Rose.

"Okay, piggy back ride," he said, gesturing for her to jump on his back.

"... What?" Rose asked, stunned.

"Until we find another car," he clarified. "You can't walk."

"But it doesn't hurt."

"You can't put weight on it," the Doctor told her straight.

"But your head?"

"I'm fine," he insisted, gesturing again. "C'mon."

Rose sighed and climbed on as best she could. He boosted her up, securing his hold.

"All right?" he asked.

She nodded, arms wrapped around him to stop herself from falling. "I can see my house from here," she joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Hmm," was all the Doctor said, and began to walk down the length of the M4.


	4. No TenRose Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No TenRose here. See, the chapter is called it. Therefore it must be true.

They walked all day, stopping several times for the Doctor to get his strength back and lunch somewhere in Slough. They hadn't found a single car on the route that wasn't completely burnt out and they'd only managed to get to Maidenhead by 9pm where, funnily enough, there were about a thousand functional cars.

They unanimously decided to pick a house and stay in it. All the electric was working and water was still running, so they were able to have dinner, a shower and wash their clothes, borrowing the residents' dressing gowns in some bizarre form of a pyjama party.

The Doctor carried Rose to the double bed, and rapidly left before Jackie came in. He went straight to the spare room and collapsed into the bed. He was utterly exhausted, and was asleep in two minutes.

It only felt like he'd closed his eyes for a second when he was woken up by Rose in the dark, her face a little pale.

"Doctor," she whispered. "My leg  _really_  hurts. I can't sleep."

He nodded tiredly, sitting up, switching on the lamp and reaching for the medical kit in amongst a menagerie of strange items that he'd taken out of his pockets when the clothes had gone in the wash. He helped her to move over and sit down on the bed, taking out a needle gun and a phial.

"I hardly ever see you sleep," she told him quietly.

"Tired, and my head's killing me," he reasoned, loading the needle gun and pressing it to the thigh of her bad leg.

"I'll get Mum to carry me tomorrow," she said, grinning slightly.

He couldn't help but smile at that a little. "I'd like to see that," he said, pulling the trigger.

Instantly Rose's leg completely numbed. "Thank you," she breathed, prodding the leg but feeling nothing.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor suddenly said after he'd put the gun away.

"Come on, the thing came runnin' at us, you couldn't really do anythin' about that," she told him seriously.

"No, not that... I mean... This whole mess."

"Not your fault either," she assured him.

"If I hadn't touched the TARDIS while she was rebuilding none of this would have happened."

"Doctor..."

"No, really. I mean, whatever that thing was that made me crash... I can't even remember that bit and... and that bomb. Whatever world we've got ourselves into it's not as empty as I thought it was. There's something here, and... what about Sarah? What about Jack? Maybe something's happened to them. I can't even find out, I'm just  _stuck_ here. And you're all stuck with me. It should just be me here. I've put you all into danger."

"Sarah and Jack can handle themselves, yeah?" Rose assured him. "So can I. Though... yeah, Mum can't... Probably be easier if she wasn't here but y'know, no point cryin' over spilt milk. So stop worryin' about us and start worryin' about Mum, yeah? Cos she's clueless."

He looked at her, and smiled. "Rose Tyler, you astound me."

"What?"

"You always know  _exactly_ what to say."

She giggled. "Yeah, like go to sleep and I'm sorry for wakin' you up."

"Now I won't feel so guilty when I do it," the Doctor replied, still smiling. "Do you want me to carry you back in?"

She suddenly looked a little sheepish. "Can I sleep in here? Mum snores like a pneumatic drill in your ear."

He shrugged. "If you want. Have the bed."

He got up and made to lie down on the floor but Rose quickly grabbed his arm to stop him going down.

"I'm not kickin' you out."

"You can't sleep on the floor."

"We have a bed."

The Doctor stared at the bed in question. "It's quite a small bed."

"You're thin, we'll fit."

The Doctor looked at her, then the bed, turning a little red. "But..."

"Look, we're both responsible mature adults... mostly," she added, still grinning that grin. "Unless you're... uncomfortable?"

"What? Oh no!" the Doctor said quickly. "No, no, no. Not uncomfortable at all. I mean, you're human. You're lovely, but you're human. And thinking in  _that_ way, well! I mean, that's just silly, isn't it? I mean, real  _silliness!_ It would be like Mayor Silly of Sillytown went to the Isle of Scilly in his silly car and..."

"Doctor?"

"Yep?" he asked instantly, still a little red, his head snapping to her with plate-sized eyes.

"Get into bed."

"Oh, right, well, yes," he said if but a little messily, climbing in next to Rose.

"Night," she said over her shoulder.

"Ni..." the Doctor began in a squeak, then panicked, quickly coughed to get some control in his voice and emitted a much deeper and more masculine, "night".

Pretty soon she was asleep, breathing slowly and deeply with her back pressed to his chest.

No, this wasn't uncomfortable, not uncomfortable at  _all...!_

He didn't sleep another wink.

* * *

Things almost felt normal again when they had breakfast the next morning. There was the obligatory morning argument and despite the fact the owners of the house would most likely never come to be out of sync with real time and therefore never see their house after it had been used by the three, Jackie  _still_ insisted on making the beds and doing the washing up.

It was 10am before they managed to get out of the door, and Jackie took the driver's seat of the car instantly.

"I'm not  _bloody_ lettin' you drive," she snapped at the Doctor, who looked winded.

Rose looked at him, and then her mother. "Mum, it wasn't his fault, yeah? It was an accident."

"I'm talkin' about his  _head!"_  Jackie insisted. "Before you know it he'll be going like a boy racer, suddenly forget where he is and then we'll all be dead. I'm drivin'."

The Doctor just sighed, and climbed into the back without further protest.

* * *

The previous owner (or was that current owner? This time travel malarkey did really screw with Rose's head sometimes) sure had a lot of CDs, and today's starting album had been selected as Mike Oldfield.

As per usual, Jackie and the Doctor were arguing, and Rose was beginning to get a bit fed up of it.

" _Nobody_ is going to arrest you!" the Doctor insisted, hands in the air as if praying to the gods for her to understand.

"I'm obeying the speed limits because if we go any faster we'll crash!" Jackie retorted angrily, keeping at a steady 70mph.

"Then maybe I should drive, because  _I_ have the reactions to get us there before the Sun dies and the Earth gets swallowed!"

"You can't!"

" _Lost in a riddle that Saturday night, far away on the other side... He was caught in the middle of a desperate fight, and she couldn't find how to push through..."_ the CD player buzzed.

"Jackie, if we go any slower we might defy the time-space continuum itself by actually going  _so_ slow that we pass  _back_ into normal time..."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"That was a joke."

"Don't quit your day job."

"Will you two  _shut up?!"_ Rose suddenly yelled, and they both promptly shut their mouths. "God, it's like World War 3 every  _bloody_ time."

"He started it," Jackie grated.

"No,  _she_  started it," the Doctor replied, arms folded.

"My god, how old are you two? Grow up!"

The Doctor and Jackie simultaneously sighed and gave up. Jackie fumed in the driver's seat and the Doctor leant back with his arms still folded, staring out of the window.

" _All she saw was a silhouette of a gun, far away on the other side... He was shot six times by a man on the run, and she couldn't find how to push through..."_

Suddenly the Doctor jolted in his seat, eyes wide and searching through his window. "Jackie, speed up."

"For  _God's sake!"_ Jackie yelled in absolute frustration.

" _Drive!"_ he shrieked, and Rose looked around in confusion... before her eyes widened.

"Oh my god, Mum, speed up!" she yelped.

"What's goin' on?!"

"We're bein' chased!"

"What?"

"What didn't you get?! We're bein' chased!"

Jackie checked the mirrors. There were five cars on them loaded full of humans, all bearing guns with their hazard lights all going. She started to panic, rammed her foot on accelerator and instantly the car began to wobble erratically as she could barely keep the car under control at the speed it was going.

"Stop, stop, Jackie!" the Doctor yelled, utterly terrified of another impending crash. "Just stop, slow down, hit the brakes... gently!"

"WHAT?" Jackie screamed, far too filled with terror to process anything else with eyes wide and her hands on the wheel in a death grip.

"STOP!" the Doctor and Rose simultaneously yelled, and she really did. Her foot slammed onto the brakes so hard they nearly all went through the windscreen, the car screeching and spinning around and around until it finally came to a stop facing sideways to the motorway, absolutely no rubber left on the tyres.

Thankfully their pursuers seemed to have a better handle of their cars than Jackie, and slowly all came to a stop around twenty metres from them. They got out, holding their guns.

"Oh god, what do we do?" Jackie whined.

"Oh no," the Doctor suddenly said, watching the people coming towards them in bold strides.

"We're gonna die, aren't we?!" Jackie shrieked.

But he wasn't listening to her. "... This is all our fault," he croaked as he realised.

"Our fault? This ain't our fault!"

"Not your fault,  _ours!"_ the Doctor yelled, pointing at himself. "We did this..."

"Did what?"

"Get out of the car!" a man at the front yelled, ten metres away where the group had come to a stop.

"Step out of the car slowly with your hands in the air," the Doctor instructed, and slowly, nervously, they did, until they were all standing in a row facing the people with their arms up.

The man, a tall, brown-haired rugged looking person regarded them for a moment, eyes panning over each of them in turn.

"We're not supposed to be here," the Doctor said quickly. "Please..."

"None of us are, mate."

"I know, believe me, I know you aren't and I  _promise_  I can help you."

"Don't give me that shit, I know what you are!" the man spat. "Turn around."

"You're making a mistake!"

"Turn the fuck around!"

The Doctor swallowed, and Rose was utterly terrified by his expression and he slowly turned. He looked at her, but then quickly looked away before he opened his mouth again.

"If you know what I am then I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, we only were doing what we thought was right and I don't know how you got here but I  _promise_ I can take you back..."

The man raised his hand in the air, and quickly brought it down. A shot was fired, and the Doctor hit the floor.

"NO!" Rose screamed, forgetting the world around her and the pain in her leg to run to the Doctor, crashing down onto her knees beside him as Jackie looked on in absolute horror. "DOCTOR!"

"Leo, they're coming," one of the other men told the man in front.

The man – Leo – nodded. "You two, with us, quick," he directed towards Jackie and Rose.

"NO!" Rose screamed again, tears pouring down her face as she cradled the Doctor's lifeless body in her arms. "Doctor, please, we have to run, we've gotta run, like always, yeah? Me and you, runnin', please just get up..."

"What the hell have you  _done?!"_ Jackie screamed angrily, suddenly  _not_ terrified. "You've killed him!"

"They've been brainwashed," Leo grated. All the people behind him were already flooding back to their cars, and there was the sound of aircraft coming towards them from overhead. "They'll fucking kill you if you don't move now!"

"No, no, no, no, no, Doctor, please, please,  _please..."_ Rose begged him, hugging him so tightly, kissing his head. "Please, Doctor, please, please wake up..."

"Who?! The  _other_ murderers?!" Jackie yelled. "Think we'll take our bloody chances!"

"The aliens, they'll kill you!" Leo shouted back. Suddenly there was the sound of what sounded like a missile coming down and a hell of an explosion ripped out in all directions, throwing everyone in the vicinity off of their feet.

Jackie was suddenly torn, but realised she had to make a very monumental decision in a short space of time, here. The thought of doing that was beyond terrifying, but in the end she didn't have to make the decision. Several of the humans came running up, grabbed her and Rose and injected something in their necks. The world began to fade from Jackie's eyes, just about processing her daughter kicking, screaming and crying as she was dragged away from the Doctor.

The last image she saw was one of the Doctor, left lying there dead in the middle of the M4.

* * *

G'aj and Kilo had arrived on the scene barely a minute after the humans had fled. Kilo swore loudly, raising his communicator to his lips.

"Stupid little human k'ashis have fled," he said. "Not up for a fight today, obviously. Shame."

" _Is it there?"_ the communicator buzzed.

"Doesn't look like it..."

" _They wouldn't have taken it, they're too stupid."_

"G'uj's looking. Oi, G'uj, got anything?" he yelled over to G'uj who was walking around the car, checking.

"No..." G'uj said, before suddenly stopping, his eyes wide as a huge smile spread on his face. "Hold on!"

Kilo ran over to G'uj, and looked down to find a humanoid man lying on the ground, blood on the concrete.

" _You got him?!"_

"Fulak yeah we have!" Kilo exclaimed in delight and G'uj knelt down to check him.

" _Is he alive?"_

"Don't look like it," Kilo said, waiting for G'uj.

"Yeah, he's dead," G'uj confirmed.

"Why didn't he regenerate?" Kilo wondered.

"Shot through the neck, instant death, he probably didn't have time," G'uj reasoned.

" _How long has he been dead for?"_

"Can't be more than two minutes," Kilo replied.

" _Right, hold on."_ There was a brief pause.  _"Right, Zow says that's not a problem, just get him here within the hour."_

"Yessir!" Kilo chimed happily. "On our way!"

He shut off the communicator and pocketed it, looking back down at the man on the floor. A huge grin spread on his face. "Oh, those little k'ashis have no idea what they just threw away."

"This is it," G'uj said, bursting into laughter as he picked up the body. "We're getting out of here."

"Race you to the ship!" Kilo yelled in delight, and sprinted off down the road with G'uj in a certain last place.


	5. Not Dead Yet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leo is based heavily on Gordon Ramsey. Prepare for excessive unneeded swearing :P

Jackie woke up, finding herself in a small dark room with no windows and two rather dismal-looking beds, one of which was occupied by Rose, who was sitting there crying her heart out.

Totally forgetting about their unfamiliar surroundings, Jackie went straight to hug her. For a while neither of them spoke, Jackie just letting her daughter sob until there were no tears left. Trouble was, there seemed to be no end to them.

"He's g-gone M-mum," Rose finally croaked out, in utter despair. "Oh g-god, he was... was j-just lyin' th... there... H-he was b-bleed-ding everywh-where..."

"Sweetheart," Jackie began, holding her daughter close. "What about his... you know, the regeneration thingy? I bet he did that."

"N-no," Rose sobbed, barely able to get the words out. "He s-said after l-last t-time he c-couldn't if... if it was t-too quick..."

"Oh, love," Jackie sighed sadly, kissing her forehead.

"Mum... Mum I l-loved him..."

Jackie sighed again. "I know, sweetheart."

Rose looked at her in confusion, her mascara like strange black tears.

"Oh sweetheart, I know. I ain't thick. It's obvious. And I reckon he loved you too."

"What?" Rose croaked.

"The way he looked at you. It's like the way your Dad used to look at me."

"B-but... you're alw-ways yellin' at h-him..."

"That's cos he wasn't good enough for ya. But y'know, even if the most perfect guy in the universe waltzed in wantin' to marry ya I'd still give him a 'ard time cos, well, I'm your Mum sweetheart. There's just no man that's good enough for my Rose."

"God, it d-doesn't even  _m-matter..._ He's... He's d-dead, Mum, he's  _d-dead!_ I can't..." she broke down again, into despair. "I c-can't even bury his b-body... And now... now we're s-stuck here."

There was a long, long pause. Jackie didn't even know what to say.

It was Rose who broke the silence, utterly distraught. "W-what's even the p-point, Mum?"

Jackie looked at her, she was utterly serious.

"We can get to Cardiff, sweetheart. Those two friends of yours are there, aren't they? We can find them and get out of this. I promise, love."

"Then what?!" Rose yelled, suddenly angry. "There's nothin' t-to go b-back to! He's dead, Mum!"

Jackie felt hurt, hurt that her daughter just disregarded her completely for the Doctor. But she didn't want an argument, not now.

So she said nothing, and just held her.

* * *

Bright white light was suddenly shining in the Doctor's eyes, even though he was sure they were closed. He tried to open them, but found they were already open, which didn't really make sense. Suddenly it felt like something hit him in the face and he opened his mouth, taking a short gasp of breath. Then another, then another. Just as he managed to get the idea of breathing under control a bright red face loomed into his vision, giving him the shock of his life.

"Good evening, can you hear me?" the face asked. It was a man. And his face wasn't smiling.

The Doctor blinked a few times, confusion not being a word that really covered just how confused he felt. It took a moment to get his mouth working and his voicebox vibrating until finally he managed, "what happened to me?"

"I will tell you in a moment, I need to check you have fully reanimated, first. Can you remember your name?"

"... The Doctor," the Doctor muttered after a considerable length of thought on the subject.

"Excellent," the red man replied without a single change in his deadpan expression whatsoever. "What is your species?"

"... Gallifreyan," the Doctor eventually answered. "I'm a.. a Time Lord."

"And what constellation is your planet in?"

"Kas... Kasterborous."

"Do you know what planet you are currently on?"

"... Earth?" the Doctor tried.

"You aren't very sure, are you?"

"Not really," the Doctor confessed, his eyes flickering around. He couldn't see anything but for the face and the bright light. "What happened to me?" he tried again.

Still the strange red man who never smiled refused to tell him, shaking his head. "Once you fully recover your memories it will be explained to you in full detail. But you are safe. Rest for a moment."

The Doctor nodded absently before the blinding light finally moved and the red man went away. It took a few moments before the Doctor managed to get his eyes to adjust to the light, and found himself in some kind of grim, damp room, the light coming from a menagerie of very sophisticated technology piled to the roof.

He'd been out of sync... Yes, that was it. On Earth, but out of time. The TARDIS had blasted him and... the car had crashed, and... they'd been chased... Hold on. Stop that thought trail. What had happened to his legs?

He forced himself to sit up, and tried to move his legs. It didn't work. He couldn't feel them. In a slight haze, his prodded one with his finger, then the other. They felt like someone else's...

"Oh, I thought that might be the case," the red man suddenly said, gazing at him. "You cannot feel them?"

The Doctor shook his head, bewildered. "Why can't I feel them?"

Again, the red man didn't answer him. "Do you remember what happened before you woke up here?"

The Doctor frowned, thinking back... Just as he felt a pain shoot through his neck as a reminder right on cue. He must have survived. … Somehow. "I was shot."

"I am afraid it caused some nerve damage to your spine," the man answered him. Still his expression hadn't changed. "I managed to correct the damage to your other limbs but I could only set the rest on the road to healing. It may be some time before you regain feeling."

"But... I like my legs," the Doctor protested weakly.

"I will create something for you in due course, but for now you must recover your mind. Rest, Time Lord. Vanaj!"

The Doctor looked up to the doorway to see another, but slightly different red man looking in. At the sight of the Doctor, he burst into possibly the biggest smile the Doctor had ever seen in his long, long life. "Good to see you awake. Oi, Kilo!" he called out the door. Shortly afterwards another alien appeared, this time a grey one, who also gave a huge, immeasurable smile.

"Evening!" he greeted with a mock salute.

"What's your name, Time Lord?" Vanaj asked.

"I'm... I'm the Doctor," the Doctor replied, still very confused.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Vanaj, and this is Kilo. We'll get you to the rest area in a jiffy. Come on, Kilo."

Vanaj took him under the arms and Kilo took his legs, together carrying him through the door, to another door and into some kind of long room filled with simple beds. If the Doctor didn't know any better, he'd say they were in a military base of some kind.

Together the two mismatched aliens laid him down on a free bed in amongst a few other aliens.

"All right?" Vanaj asked.

"Yeah," was all the Doctor really managed to say.

"If you need anything, like you get hungry or something, the mess is through..." Kilo began, before remembering the Doctor's legs didn't work. "Oh, whoops! Sorry. Well if you need anything just yell Kilo and I'll come running, all right? Don't matter what the time is."

"Okay."

"Sleep well, Doctor," Vanaj said, and the two left.

The Doctor just laid there for a moment, staring at the ceiling before he finally resigned to close his eyes, really hoping this would all make a lot more sense when he woke up.

* * *

The door of Rose and Jackie's room unlocked when the morning light came, and that Leo and a couple of others strode in, completely in control.

Rose saw him, and instantly her face turned. "Murderer!" she yelled.

"Oh, you still crying over that alien?" Leo sighed. "It was an alien." He leant in towards her, his eyes narrowing as he punctuated every word he said next. "Get. Over. It."

With utterly no hesitation whatsoever, she slapped him right across the face as hard as she could. Instantly the men behind Leo raised their guns and loaded them with a distinct click, pointing right at her.

Jackie was on her feet instantly, fire in her eyes. "You get those things the  _hell_ away from my daughter," she snapped, an outburst that surprised both her and Rose.

Leo held his now bright-red cheek, his eyes narrowed, staring at Rose with utter and complete hatred. After a moment he held up his hand, and the others lowered their aim.

"Don't shoot her, not yet anyway," he muttered. "She's useful. She can't fight on a broken leg, so she can reproduce."

"Get lost!" Jackie yelled, diving in front of Rose. "You can take that idea and shove it up your  _bloody_ arse!" she screamed right in his face, spittle flying everywhere.

"There ain't nothing  _you're_ useful for at your age, lady," Leo spat. "Except maybe you could pop out three or four then start scrubbing the floors, so you'd better watch your mouth."

"Tell us what's goin' on!" Rose demanded, getting onto her good foot behind her mum.

"Don't tell me you don't know what we're trying to do here."

"Of course we don't," Rose grated. "You think we often jump through time into a land of utter psychos?"

"We're not psychos, we're  _humans._ And what are all humans doing? Fucking  _surviving,_ that's what!" Leo yelled. "We're all stuck here because of some stupid race that failed to maintain their tech and all these aliens are trying to  _kill us!"_

"What aliens?" Rose asked, pushing aside her mum.

"Aliens like the piece of shit one who was with you, probably mind control, and you're probably not even worth saving. They're crawling all over our planet, killing every human they see!"

Rose ignored the jab. "How did you get here?"

"The same way you got here?" Leo answered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Tell me how you got here," Rose persisted, trying to keep her anger under control.

"The shifter!" Leo burst out. "You step into the wrong nanometre on Earth you shift, and before you know it you're here, waking up in this shit dump of a world all because some pompous arsehole aliens don't even  _bother_ to come back to check their equipment is actually  _fucking working_!"

Jackie frowned and looked at Rose, who was also frowning as something the Doctor said came flooding back...

" _... This is all our fault."_

" _Our fault? This ain't our fault!"_

" _Not your fault, ours!" the Doctor yelled, pointing at himself. "We did this..."_

"Time Lord," Rose realised.

Leo's head suddenly snapped to her, his eyes wide. "What did you say?!"

"Time Lords," Rose repeated, very strongly this time. "Were they the pompous arsehole aliens you were talkin' about?"

"How do  _you_  know  _that?!"_ Leo yelped, utterly shocked.

"That man you shot. That man you  _killed._ He was a Time Lord."

Leo staggered back as if he'd been shot with a bullet of pure shock. Then suddenly he was angry again; utterly red in the face. "Don't you fucking  _lie_ to me!"

"It's true. He was a Time Lord. The  _last Time Lord alive._  He could have got you out of this and you  _killed_ him. Now you're stuck here forever because  _you_  didn't listen to him and now he's _dead!"_

"Shut the  _fuck_  up, bitch!" Leo yelled, absolutely furious. He started pacing back and forth, eyes wide, fixed to the ground. Suddenly he looked up to the others. "Get a message to the scouts, tell them to go back to where we picked up these dumbass whores and  _find the body!"_

They left instantly, and Leo turned back to Rose, his finger pointing straight at her.

"You'd  _better_  not be lying to me."

And then he turned, and left at a run.

Rose decided she didn't want to miss this, and with her Mum's help she followed.

* * *

"Doctor. Doctor?"

The Doctor opened his eyes, his head a lot less scrambled. For a moment he wondered whether they'd crashed the car again and the previous night had all been some kind of crazy dream, before the confirmation of reality came when Kilo's beaming face appeared in his vision.

"Morning!" Kilo said happily. "Zow made you a present."

The Doctor sat up, finding Kilo was holding a pair of metal devices of some description, sort of like a bridle for a horse except much longer.

"What are they for?" he wondered.

"Your legs, dummy! Zow says it'll get you up in no time. Come on, gimme your leg."

The Doctor lifted his legs with his hands to hang over the edge of the bed, where Kilo took his right and placed the metal bridle around it. It automatically visibly tightened and clicked into place. Instantly his leg shot up straight and almost kicked Kilo in the face.

"Sorry!" the Doctor said quickly, but was completely and utterly astonished at the piece of technology on his leg. He still couldn't feel his leg, but he could move it with absolute ease – without even thinking about it.

"S'alright!" Kilo beamed, and moved to the other. This time he ducked out of the way as it shot up straight.

"This is amazing," the Doctor breathed. "This is... This shouldn't exist. I've never seen anything that comes this close to full mobility."

"That's Zow for you," Kilo replied, laughing at his expression. "Genius, he is. Anyway, when you're ready come into the mess and meet the crew."

The Doctor nodded absently as Kilo left again. He flexed his legs, and dared to push himself to stand up. Then he jumped a few times. He even tried a bit of Riverdance. It was as though nothing was wrong with them. He thought paralysis spelt game over and regeneration for his lifestyle as there was really no faultless mobility aid or cure in the Universe for humanoids, but no. Here he was. He should have been paralysed from the neck down but this Zow had managed to heal his upper half and create a pretty perfect mobility aid for his legs. In  _one night._

What kind of world had he just stepped into?

* * *

" _The body's not there, sir."_

"Are you fucking  _kidding me?!"_ Leo screamed down the mic. "I swear to God if you're lying I will  _kill_  you!"

" _No, sir. There body's not here. There's blood but he's gone."_

"They've got him," Leo whispered, before his voice inevitably raised again. "Oh my god, they've got the Time Lord.  _Fuck!"_

He was pacing again, Rose and Jackie watching.

"That's it. He'll take them to the Switch!" he yelled.

"What's the Switch?" Rose asked quickly. "And how can he if he's dead?"

"The Switch is the way out of here!" Leo shouted angrily, right at Rose. "The failsafe! And he's not dead! He's alive!"

"But he died!" Rose protested. "You killed him!"

Leo glared a poisonous glare at her. "I don't have time for you." He leant to the microphone. "I want all units out, looking for their base. I don't fucking  _care_ if you have to swim to  _Australia_ ,  _find him right now!"_

He picked up the keyboard of the computer and smashed the monitor with it in rage, before storming off out of the room.

One of the other humans looked at them, a woman.

"Do you really know a Time Lord?" she asked quietly.

Rose nodded. "Why's he so important? And how can he be alive?"

"Only a Time Lord knows where the Switch is," the woman told them, glancing around as if afraid to be overheard. "And only a Time Lord knows how to activate it. Because they created this whole thing... I mean, the shifter."

"What's the shifter?" Rose asked.

"The thing that brings you here. Most of us were brought here accidentally because the shifter's damaged; it's meant to get rid of highly notorious fugitive aliens that come to Earth, and really dangerous evolved creatures. The Time Lords made it for humanity's safety, and the Switch deactivates the shifter and sends everyone in the radius back to real time. If the aliens have got your Time Lord..." She swallowed, and looked around again. "When he takes them to the Switch, we're all gonna be erased from existence."

"But he's alive? How is he alive? Leo shot him," Rose asked, confused. "He was dead."

Leo suddenly stormed back in again, and the woman shut up instantly and got back to work.

"Get the hell out of my sight," Leo snapped at the pair, and they quickly decided to leave.


	6. Meet the Crew

When the Doctor entered the mess he found a crowd of roughly eight aliens of various species eating. When he came in, they all instantly looked up and started applauding him.

The Doctor humbly held up his hands, gesturing across his neck for them to stop. Eventually they did, and Kilo beckoned him over.

"Sit here!" Kilo implored, pointing to the seat beside him. "We've saved you some grockles."

The Doctor took the proffered seat, looking down to the bowl in front of him filled with inch-length black insects of some kind. He wasn't picky. He scooped one up and ate it. It tasted like soya beans.

"This isn't grockle," the Doctor realised.

"Nah, there's a nest of these things down the corridor we found when we got here, we had no idea what they were so we called 'em grockles," Kilo told him.

The Doctor looked at one closely this time, its little legs waving around frantically before he popped it in his mouth. He had no idea what they were.

"How are you feeling?" the one the Doctor remembered as Vanaj asked.

"Fine, umm... D'you mind if I ask you some questions?" the Doctor asked.

"Go ahead," Vanaj invited.

"... Where am I and who are you?"

The crowd laughed, Kilo slapping him on the back joyfully. "Yeah, we figured. How long have you been here?"

The Doctor  _really_  had to think about that for a moment. "Err... A couple of days, I think?"

Vanaj nodded. "Yeah. We're around seven seconds out of sync, according to Tex." He gestured to someone sat beside him, a jet black Kilo'quan with her eyes fixed on a tech-pad with a headset on. At the sound of her name, Tex looked up and waved at the Doctor with a happy smile.

"Yeah, 7.83492884 as an estimate," she continued, shrugging. "It's close enough."

"Tex is our techie," Vanaj explained. "She's an electrical genius."

"Yes, yes I am," Tex replied, beaming away before going back to her computer. The Doctor grinned at that.

"I'm sergeant!" Kilo suddenly burst out in enthusiasm, pointing at himself. "Kilo from the planet Panallia."

"Our cook's Rekko, he can whip up a rolanberry pie from two sticks of wood," Vanaj continued, pointing at a short, spiky, red Zocci running around the room from cupboard to cupboard, far too busy to talk. "G'uj here's the newest one before you." He pointed at a small blue Polanquian eating away at his grockles. "He's a little shy and quiet but we're working on that."

"Sorry..." the Doctor interrupted quickly. "How old are you, G'uj?"

G'uj looked up. "Universally 50, sir."

The Doctor frowned. If he was right, that was equivalent to the human age of ten... "You're a Polanquian, aren't you?"

"Yessir."

"But..."

"I know, a baby, isn't he?" Kilo said, laughing. "We found him when he was only twenty. The humans got there first and shot him but we saved him and trained him up. He's our scout."

The Doctor couldn't really believe it. "But the shifter isn't supposed to take minors..."

"Funny that, huh?" Kilo replied.

"This is Jux," Vanaj continued, pointing at a Joxan sitting at the other end of the table, barely paying attention to anything else but his food. After a moment he looked up to reveal nearly half his face was missing, scarred beyond belief. He nodded at the Doctor in acknowledgement, and then looked back down again. "He does weapons and demolition. And this is Zolo, Rolo and Polo, triplets from the planet Trowba-Laowba."

The Doctor looked at them, all looking exactly the same as though there were a couple of mirror tricks going on.

"Hello..." Zolo said.

"To..." Rolo said.

"You!" Polo finished, all in quick succession.

"Yeah, they talk in tri-lets," Kilo explained. "It gets really annoying."

"Fulak..." Zolo said.

"You..." Rolo said.

"Kilo!" Polo completed, all of them looking a bit annoyed.

Vanaj rolled his eyes. "Yeah, they're our foot soldiers. Totally fearless. They used to speak in quad-lets but they lost their brother, Holo, in a fight and we couldn't get to him in time."

"Good..."

"Bye..."

"Holo!" they said, looking sad.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said seriously.

"It's..."

"Okay..."

"Doctor!" they said, smiling at him in unison.

He offered a small smile back, before Vanaj continued.

"Then there's me, of course, I'm the boss around here. From the Planet Jaze and proud. Finally there Zow the guy who treated you," Vanaj said, gesturing to the door. "He's our medic. He doesn't eat with us."

"Doesn't talk much, either," Kilo told the Doctor. "We've all got a history and k'ashi knows what his is."

"What's your history?" the Doctor wondered. "I mean, how did you all get to be here?"

"Me? Killed people who didn't pay back their money for protection," Vanaj said without a hint of remorse. "Shadow Proclamation got whiff of me, I hitch-hiked to Earth to hide and next thing I knew I was here. About 1000 years ago, now. Kill count was about 5780 on paper, then I came here and there's probably about 35,000 humans to add to that."

"Arsonist, here," Kilo said, as happy as ever. "Burnt down parliament on my planet. Got a taste for it and burnt down a few houses, then some other stuff I can't remember then toasted an orphanage. Police got me, but I broke out and came here but the shifter got me. Kill count was about 1500."

"The triplets got a name in the press, though, when there were four of them," Vanaj continued. "The Forbidding Foursome. Used to snatch people off the street and torture the fulak out of them. Around 10,000 kill count I think."

The Doctor felt very, very cold. He remembered that news story... And their mysterious disappearance. "... Why did you do it?" he asked the triplets.

"Really..."

"Really..."

"Fun!" the threesome replied happily.

"Rekko's always been a cook," Vanaj continued, as if what they'd said had been of utterly no shock whatsoever. "What did you do again, Rekko?"

The Zocci was still running around. "No time!" he said, and ran out of the room again.

Vanaj laughed. "Something to do with poison and the Judoon HQ. I think he got most of them. They weren't happy. Tex, what about you?"

"Created a new virus that infected people through computers," she boasted. "Instant death. I put it onto the MMO World of Spacecraft and baam! Around 4 million didn't level up that night."

Everyone else laughed, but the Doctor swallowed, suddenly quite, quite scared. He was in the company of completely sick mass murderers... He should have been expecting it, really.

"Jux was a terrorist, killed a load of civilians but he lucked out," Vanaj said. "Hey, Jux, what's your kill count?"

"Too many," Jux muttered, and went back to his breakfast.

"... What about G'uj?" the Doctor nearly croaked.

G'uj looked up, and shrugged. "I was here on holiday with my Mum and Dad in my school holiday, I think. I don't remember killing anyone before I got here."

"We figured he probably got taken by the shifter by accident," Vanaj said. "And as for Zow... Like we said, no idea. He never talks about himself or his past, never really shows any emotion."

"We reckon he's from Polla Minor," Kilo chipped in enthusiastically. "He looks like a Pollan. You know, the planet that all mysteriously just died?"

"31 billion kill count," Vanaj hummed, obviously impressed. "Nearly wiped out an entire race."

"Fulaking genius he is, though. Without him we'd all be dead. Literally," Kilo said.

"What?"

"The machine you were in, he made it himself."

"What machine?"

All the others suddenly looked at each other, unsure.

"Oh, we thought you'd have worked it out..." Vanaj said slowly, uncertainly.

"Worked what out?"

"You were dead when we found you. It brought you back to life."

The Doctor stared at him, utterly shocked. "... But that's impossible."

"Told you he was a genius," Kilo said, laughing at his expression. "We gotta get bodies there within an hour, though, or Zow says it won't work."

"But that's... There's no technology in the universe to do that, not even in the future. You can't reanimate the dead. You just can't..."

"Oh, don't put it like that!" Kilo moaned. "That makes me feel like a zombie."

"... You've died too?"

"We've..."

"All..."

"Died!" the triplets told him, all still smiling.

"Jux has died at least eighty times. I think I'm the winner on 103, though," Kilo said, as if stating a new Guinness World Record.

"There were about 2000 of us before," Vanaj explained. "We were losing so many people. We were down to about 13 before Zow arrived. That was about 50 years ago. We've only lost Kitch and Holo since then."

The Doctor, for one of the few times in his life, was utterly stunned. "... How does the machine work?"

Kilo just laughed at him. "We ain't got no idea, we just use it. It's funny watching the humans' faces when they know they killed us the week before and we suddenly reappear and shoot 'em dead."

"Did he bring it with him through the shifter?"

"Nah, how would you do that?" Kilo laughed. "He made it out of spare parts he could find."

The Doctor just stared at him.

"Since Jux and Zow got here we've finally had the technology to wipe the humans out," Tex told him, still typing away on the tech-pad.

"They were spreading like a virus," Vanaj continued, nodding at Tex. "I mean, every time we killed one they'd make another little human to replace it. Thing is, they take  _so_ long to grow up, and they're just easy pickings when they're infants."

The Doctor felt a little sick, but forced himself to nod, like that was a completely normal thing to do.

"Only time we get new recruits is new droppers," Kilo said. "I mean, people who arrive here like you. The humans and us both have the technology to detect whether they're human or non-human and vague location of the new arrivals."

"You guys moved fast," Tex complimented, looking up from the tech-pad but still typing. "I detected you a couple of days ago, but since us and the humans can only get a vague area it's always a race to which side gets to them first, to either recruit or shoot."

"If they're alien recruit 'em, if they're human shoot 'em!" Kilo yelled enthusiastically, grinning.

"Poetic," the Doctor muttered.

"They might be able to reproduce but they need recruits too," Vanaj said.

"But Tex rigged up something special, didn't ya Tex?" Kilo said happily.

Tex smiled. "I can detect species. Nearly hit the roof when I saw what you were."

"I didn't even believe her," Vanaj confessed. "I thought you all died in the War."

"Those k'ashi dumb humans have got no idea what you are," Kilo said, grinning.

"... You want the Switch," the Doctor realised quietly.

"Of course!" Kilo said, laughing. "Only you can activate it, and you gotta know where it is. Then we can all get the hell out of here."

The Doctor knew everything about the Switch, but he needed to play for time. He needed to get Jackie and Rose, find Jack and Sarah and leave... quickly. "... That's an ancient memory. I'll need some time to dig it up."

"How long?" Vanaj asked.

"A few days, probably."

"Well, a few more days won't hurt," Vanaj concluded, shrugging.

Kilo nodded, suddenly getting up and addressing the rest of the table. "Right guys, reckon we should go and take out that little outer colony that's trying to spy on us."

Everyone else got out of their seats, the Doctor included, but Vanaj pushed him back down.

"Oh no, you're far too valuable. You stick here, Tex'll look after you."

"But..." the Doctor began in protest.

Vanaj raised an eyebrow. "I thought Time Lords were wusses."

"Not this one," the Doctor replied, standing up again.

"No, still not coming," Vanaj replied, pushing him down once more. "Make yourself at home. Try to remember where the Switch is."

The Doctor couldn't argue. He didn't particularly  _want_ to argue. Not with people like this. He'd encountered enough to know how quickly they could flip, and how quickly he would be screaming out where the Switch was through a mouthful of blood.

Everyone left except Tex and Rekko, who whizzed past into another room as busy as always.

"I detected two humans with you," Tex suddenly said. "Were they hostages?"

The Doctor swallowed, pausing for a moment. "... You could say that."

Tex smiled. "Yeah, I figured as much. Do they know you're a Time Lord?"

Suddenly the Doctor didn't know what to say. What if these aliens tried to hunt them down? But if he lied and they found out... "Err... yes, they probably remember," he finally said.

To his utter relief, Tex smiled. "Great! They'll be kicking themselves and trying to hunt you down. That'll be fun. Oh, and there was another human but we didn't bother going after them, but what's one more parasite?"

The Doctor internally breathed a sigh of relief. There was no doubt that was Sarah.

"By the way," Tex continued. "I also detected this... well, I dunno what it was. It wasn't human but it wasn't one of us either. It didn't even detect it as an animal. I had no idea what it was. D'you reckon something could have split into two or something through the shifter?"

 _'Jack,'_ the Doctor instantly thought, but didn't voice it. "It's possible if there's a malfunction," he lied.

Tex nodded. "Makes sense."

"Have you got a bathroom?" the Doctor asked, really wanting to get out of the room. It stank to high heaven and to be frank he felt very, very uncomfortable.

"Yeah, through where you slept," Tex said, and turned her attention back to the tech-pad.

He left as quickly as he could.


	7. Monsters Vs. Aliens

The Doctor locked himself in the bathroom, which seemed to stink as well, and tried desperately to think. He had no idea what to do. If he left this base these aliens would hunt him down for sure, seeing him as a traitor – and with this impossible resurrection machine the Doctor wouldn't be protected in the company of the humans for very long. He'd probably cause all their deaths; being the main target. And were Rose and Jackie safe? Had Sarah reached Jack? How long until they both came looking for him, not knowing at all about the dangers?

He needed to send a message to Rose and Jackie. If he could get them to meet him somewhere they might be able to get to Cardiff to leave their pursuers in the dust.

But these people needed his help. G'uj. G'uj was only 10-years-old and had already killed so many people, just for survival. He didn't deserve to be here. He wasn't  _meant_ to be here.

The Doctor hated his conscience sometimes. He couldn't just leave G'uj here, not in the company of these mass murderers. G'uj needed to go back to Polanquia, back to his mum and dad. He was still young; there was still a chance to save him.

And he hadn't even  _started_ thinking about this Zow yet...

He desperately dug around in his pockets, looking for something,  _anything_  that might allow him to get a message to Rose and Jackie. He went through a menagerie of objects including a 350-year-old packet of jelly babies, a yoyo and a pompom before drawing out a scrunched piece of paper.

He opened it, to find it was one of Rose's shopping lists. To think he'd laughed at her at the time. He grinned with utter glee, quickly flipped it over and rummaged for a pen, pure relief filling him when he found one buried right at the bottom of his pocket underneath a tennis ball.

He knelt on the floor, scribbling out a message to them before folding the piece of paper up into a paper aeroplane. He drew out his sonic and his TARDIS key, adjusted the sonic's settings and buzzed the key for five very long, anxious minutes. Eventually the key began to heat up so much the metal became a gloopy blob, and a bit of it came off of the key and dropped onto the paper aeroplane.

He grinned again, quickly adjusting the setting to freeze the metal back instantly, even though it was just a mess now. He  _really_ hoped Rose still had her key...

Then he got up, picked up the plane and went to the window. With a few hard pushes he opened it just enough, and threw the plane outside. Instantly it spiralled up in the area, locked on the location of Rose's TARDIS key and began to glide away, swooping around the landscape until it was just a speck in the distance.

He turned back, feeling very relieved. He was about to make off when he caught sight of himself in a mirror, and his jaw dropped slightly.

His clothes were tattered and stained with blood, the bandage on his head half-ripped and also stained with blood. He dared to take a whiff of himself, and quickly realised the bad smell he'd been getting all morning was actually  _him._

He did an instant 180, and went to the shower.

When he stepped out a good thirty minutes later, he pinched some army trousers and a white t-shirt from a basket by the shower. He had to take off his leg braces to get on the trousers, which took about ten minutes alone to put on. He pulled on the shirt and his braces before proceeding to rip up his old shirt to wrap around his head, which was  _still_ banging a headachelike the bass ofan overzealous club DJ in his brain.

He checked himself in the mirror again, hummed approval, and left.

* * *

Rose and Jackie hadn't been confronted again as they explored the base, and found the situation was far more horrific than either of them had anticipated.

The amount of humans crowded into this tiny place was unbelievable. The corridors were filled with them all, clearly unwashed, clearly underfed, clearly depressed and some of them clearly verging on the edge of insanity. Even as they walked a man ran up to them, his hair and clothes dishevelled, yelled something about the aliens in their face and ran off screaming. This wasn't a one-off occurrence either, as four more came afterwards in quick succession. There were even people crying on the floor, rocking back and forth in a foetal position, screaming for people who never came.

The first room they came across was obviously a weapons room. Weapon upon weapon was stacked high with no regard for safety of any kind; guns in piles on the floor and grenades stacked high in boxes with several falling off hard onto the unwashed carpeted floor in the minute they were watching. Inside the room there were training sessions going on, figures of aliens placed at the end of the room perforated with hundreds of bullet holes, with teenagers looking around 18-20 learning how to use the guns.

Just one room down from that was some kind of baby unit, with probably over one hundred infants in haphazard cots all lined up inside. They were all screaming and crying, and the two Tylers both had to move on quickly as the noise of the combined screaming babies was just too much to endure.

A little way away from that there was room for the creatures on this new Earth. Thousands of captured species were in cages, and some were being tested on as they watched. In the corner of the room was an exceptionally large cage housing a massive black creature with sharp, pointed fangs and bony wings. It was like nothing on the ordinary world, but they recognised it. That had been the type of creature that had caused them to crash... what felt like forever ago.

They continued onwards, pushing through the crowds of people to the next used room. It very quickly became apparent it was a hospital, of sorts... A very shoddy-made and rudimentary hospital. There were too many casualties for the beds, with many just lying on the floor in various states of disrepair, screaming in untreated pain. A woman's screams from the corner denoted a birth was currently in progress, and quite close to them a man was pointing his gun at the head of an old man, who was begging not to be shot.

Rose couldn't help herself. She limped over immediately, standing between the old man and the gun.

"What the hell are you doin'?" she demanded of the man with the gun.

"Get out of the way, these are orders from Commander Leo," the man gruffed, not a hint of warmth in his eyes.

"What has he done?"

"He's old," the man said simply, as if that explained everything.

Rose looked back at the old man, and then back at the one with the gun, her jaw wide open in utter disbelief. "You're shootin' him cos he's  _old?"_

"He's useless, he can't fight anymore. He's a waste on our resources. We can't have waste."

"He's been fightin' for you, for your cause! You should respect that!" Rose yelled at him, the old man still cowering behind her. "How would you feel if you'd been fightin' all your life and the only thing you get at the end is to be shot? Where's your humanity? This is just murder!"

The man gazed at her, lowering his gun slightly. Rose hoped that meant he was relenting, but his face told another story altogether.

"I've been here twenty years, sweetheart," he grunted. "I used to think like you. But all my friends have died around me, brain damaged from explosions, limbs blown off, even someone who got the flu, and they all got shot for it because they were wasting resources. There ain't a shred of humanity here. Not anymore."

Rose gazed at him, wide-eyed. "What d'you mean, exactly?"

He pointed towards the door. "Them aliens out there? They're s'posed to be the killers, yeah? The murderers? The monsters? Well they're not. The monsters are right here. It's us. We're fucking sick. It's the monsters versus the aliens, and right now, the aliens are winning."

And with that, he slung his gun over his shoulder and strode out of the door.

Slightly unnerved, Rose swallowed, and turned back to the old man who was being helped to his feet by Jackie.

"Thank you, so much," he croaked.

Rose offered him a small smile. "Go and get something to eat, you look really shaken."

He nodded, and hobbled out of the door.

Rose and Jackie looked at each other, and without a word being spoken, they headed off again.

Upon reaching the first empty room, which happened to be a broken bathroom, Rose locked them inside and headed for the window.

"We're leavin', Mum. This place is sick. They're all sayin' the Doctor's alive so maybe he is, and if he is we gotta find him, yeah?" Rose said, pulling up the sliding window with a few throaty grunts.

For once, Jackie didn't argue, just nodding. She'd had enough for one day. In fact, she'd had enough for one lifetime. She moved forward to help Rose, when she caught side of something white coming towards the open window, drifting effortlessly.

"What's...?" Jackie began, just as the white thing sped up and headed straight for Rose's chest. Jackie shrieked and tried to push her daughter out of the way of this strange white thing but Rose stopped her.

"It's a paper aeroplane, Mum!" Rose laughed as the white thing went straight to her chest and stuck there.

Jackie felt a little embarrassed, but mostly confused. "Who the hell is throwin' paper aeroplanes?"

Rose was laughing too much to answer, sliding her hand under the collar of her shirt and pulling out her TARDIS key, hanging from her neck by a string. The aeroplane moved with it, as if magnetised.

"It's him! He's alive!" she managed to get out through her absurd giggles of utter joy.

"Oh my god, open it, quick!" Jackie yelped, grabbing the aeroplane from Rose and pulling it open to see if there was anything inside.

"Milk, sugar, tampons, chocolate, brown bread," she read, her eyebrows lowering in confusion. "What? Why does  _he_  need tampons?"

Rose was still laughing, taking the paper out of her hands and flipping it over. "Other side, Mum."

_Rose, Jackie,_

_I'm alive so don't think this is the end, please. The humans have probably explained the situation to you._

_I'm with the aliens and they're treating me as their own, asking me to get them to the Switch. I just need to do something then I will arrange a place for us to meet so we can run and get to Cardiff hopefully before they even realise I've gone. Sarah and Jack are safe at the moment, but if we don't turn up soon they might not be._

_These aliens are dangerous, notorious criminals with potential universe-destroying technology and a sickening hate for humans, so please don't do anything brave and stupid. Play the game for a moment. I'll be in touch._

_The Doctor_

Rose and Jackie looked at each other.

"Well, I guess we're stayin'," Rose muttered.

"What?" Jackie asked, confused. "But we can't... not here."

"Mum, he knows where we are here. He knows we're with the humans and if we run off he's gonna have to search the whole of Britain for us. He said don't do anything brave and stupid and to play the game, so we will, yeah?"

Jackie frowned. "But what're we gonna do in the meantime? No daughter of mine is gonna be poppin' out babies!"

Rose laughed at her, which knocked Jackie for six. With that piece of paper in her hand Rose was suddenly back, suddenly a lot more happy to know the Doctor was alive. "I'm not gonna be poppin' out babies, all right? We'll just have to keep our heads low and keep in line until the Doctor gets here. Then once he finds us we can all get out of this horrible world."

"So... What do we do?"

" _Announcement!"_ a large tannoy suddenly sounded loudly through the wall.  _"Outer Base Four destroyed! Casualties incoming!"_

Rose looked at Jackie, and grinned. "We can help. C'mon."


	8. Dinner

Vanaj and the others were high-fiving each other the moment they returned, which the Doctor assumed meant mission successful. This was confirmed when they came up to him, whilst he was fiddling with the sonic screwdriver. They were all beaming.

"Aliens one, humans zero!" Kilo boasted, and looked at his new outfit. "Hey, nice threads."

The Doctor smiled. "So the Outer Base was destroyed?"

"Absolutely..."

"Nothing..."

"Left!" the triplets enthused.

"Burnt to the ground!" Kilo affirmed.

"A couple got away but they won't last long," Vanaj said. "Thanks to Jux."

The Doctor looked up at the man in question – the sombre alien with half a face, busy placing detonation devices carefully back into a box on the table.

"Let's see if Rekko can't knock us up something a bit special," Vanaj continued, and wandered out of the door to the mess, followed by the triplets and Jux to leave the Doctor, Kilo and G'uj.

"Doctor?" G'uj began quietly.

The Doctor looked at the young alien. The alien who had just killed probably at least another 50 humans that day. "Hmm?"

"What is that?" he asked, pointing at the sonic screwdriver the Doctor was messing about with.

"Oh, this is my sonic screwdriver," the Time Lord replied, holding it up. "Among other things, it unlocks doors, mends barbed wire, triplicates the flammability of port wine... Well, actually, not that, but it  _could_ if I wanted it to."

"You made it?"

The Doctor nodded, and gave it to him. G'uj held it with interest, pressing the buttons and peering at the bright blue light with interest.

"We could do with a few of those," Kilo said, staring at the device before looking back at the Doctor. "Any chance you could knock some up for us?"

The Doctor shook his head. "It needs special parts that don't exist on Earth."

"Ah," Kilo said. "Sucks being stuck here, right? Still, we'll be out soon. You remembered where the Switch is yet?"

"Not yet."

"Okay. Better hurry up cos the humans are gonna be going crazy looking for ya. We'll probably have to move base tomorrow morning. I'll see how the food's getting on."

The Doctor nodded as Kilo got up and left. G'uj gave the Doctor back his sonic, thanking him with a small nod.

"You know," the Doctor began, pocketing the sonic. "Once we're out of here, what are you going to do?"

G'uj shrugged. "Stick with Kilo and Vanaj, I guess."

"What's their plan?"

"I think they're gonna wipe out humanity on Earth," he said casually.

"And you want to do that?"

G'uj shrugged again. "Something to do, I guess. Not like I got a choice."

"What about your parents?" the Doctor asked, leaning forward.

"What about them?"

"Don't you want to find them and go back to them? They must be distraught."

"I don't know where I come from or where I lived or anything," G'uj replied honestly. "I can't remember their faces or even my real name. Vanaj named me G'uj."

"What if I could?" the Doctor proposed. "What if I could promise to find your parents for you?"

For the first time, G'uj looked him directly in the eye, completely disbelievingly. "You could do that?"

"Of course, I've got files and records. If we left in the morning you could be back with your parents in time for dinner."

G'uj looked away from him again, staring at the table. "I dunno. I couldn't just leave Kilo and Vanaj. They brought me up, y'know? I owe a lot to them."

The Doctor nodded slowly, clicking his tongue in contemplation. "Well, have a think about it, all right? My offer's there."

"Okay," G'uj said, just as the triplets simultaneously popped their heads into the room.

"Dinner's..."

"Ready..."

"Now!" they said, and ducked back out again.

"That was quick," the Doctor commented, lowering his eyebrows.

G'uj smiled a little at him. "That's Rekko," he said, and left.

The Doctor watched him go for a moment. If he could just get through to G'uj a little more. Just a little.

He got up and left for the mess.

* * *

The sight that greeted him was beyond belief. The long table was stacked with enough food suitable the most expensive banquet, bowls of fruits, plates of meat, and dishes of vegetables – or at least, all the equivalents that could be found on this world. He suddenly realised how impossibly hungry he was. Everybody was patiently waiting for the Doctor before he took a seat next to Jux, and the alien pushed a plate towards him.

He was about to get started, when everybody suddenly bowed their heads and closed their eyes, Vanaj getting to his feet. The Doctor also lowered his head quickly.

"Kichan, our Lord almighty, we thank you for your blessing in our victory, and for your generosity in the food we are about to receive. T'cha," he said slowly and clearly. He sat down, and Tex stood up next.

"Pehlan, our Lady almighty, we thank you for your blessing in our victory, and for your generosity in the food we are about to receive. Lia," she uttered, and sat down.

"Jooi, our Lord almighty," Kilo began next. "We thank you for your blessing in our victory, and for your generosity in the food we are about to receive. N'aka."

"Doctor," Vanaj suddenly said, and the Doctor looked up. "This is the time those of us with gods thank them. You're welcome to say anything to your god, if you have one. It's fine if you don't, not many of us do."

The Doctor shook his head. "Not for me, thanks."

"Very well," Vanaj said, and everyone raised their heads. "Let's get stuffed."

* * *

Rose and Jackie had been to hell and back.

The rate of casualties had been horrendous, and the level of medical treatment in this world was quite close to appalling. It was hard to believe that only three of the 50,000 or so humans were doctors, but believe they had to. Out of the 400 that came through the doors within an hour Rose had only seen four that she thought might recover, and Jackie had only seen two.

After a hard day's work they had to search for a place to find some food. Eventually they came across something that looked like a food hall, seats filled, people eating off of the tables. The ones that hadn't managed to get seats were standing, eating out of their hands, and some were even crossed-legged with the floor as a plate. As they entered the room about four fights broke out; people apparently wrestling over pieces of food.

"Looks like my old school canteen," Rose said with a sigh, taking her Mum's hand and limping towards where the source of the food seemed to be.

People were crowding around like hungry dogs to one bowl, pushing and shoving each other like a mosh pit at a Metallica concert. For a while Rose and Jackie opted to stay back, but after a while it became apparent that waiting your turn was far too civilised for this place and they tried to force their way through. But that was beyond impossible, the throng of bodies far too much.

Still, Rose liked impossible, and they both liked the idea of food right now. So they kept trying.

* * *

The Doctor took another jereka pie from the pile, munching happily on it as all the aliens chatted happily to each other, like the most unlikely finger food dinner party. Kilo and Vanaj were roaring with laughter, G'uj looking at them both obviously trying to share their amusement. The triplets were simultaneously chewing and swallowing their food, Tex was eating and typing at the same time, and Jux was just eating, staring at the table and keeping himself to himself as always.

Jux intrigued him slightly, so the Doctor decided to try and engage him in conversation.

"Are Rekko and Zow not joining us?" he asked. The icebreaker. He was good at those.

Jux looked at him. "They don't eat with us," he grunted.

"Why not?"

"Rekko eats while he's cooking and Zow takes his own plate to his room," Jux replied.

"What is it about Zow?" the Doctor wondered. "I haven't seen him since I... err... Well, since I... woke up."

Jux just shrugged. "Dunno. I think he prefers not to  _talk to people,"_ he said, really emphasising the last few words as a hint to the Doctor to shut up.

The Doctor caught the hint, but decided to ignore it. "Does he spend all day in there?"

"Pretty much."

"Working on his stuff?"

"I guess."

The Doctor sighed. It was really going to take some coaxing to get a conversation out of this strange man. There was quite a pause before the Doctor latched onto something he could say...

"So! You were a terrorist!" was what came out before the Doctor had any control to stop it.

Jux looked straight at him with his half face, and suddenly the Doctor noticed something he'd never actually properly noticed before. Jux's right eye was bionic.

"Fat lot of fulak that did," Jux grunted.

"Hmm. Yeah. Umm..." the Doctor began, staring at that mangled side of Jux's face. "Can I just ask...?"

"How did I lose my face?" Jux completed, without a hint of a smile. "Funny, that. You spend your life making bombs to kill other people, and after twenty years of it you cross the wrong wire and it blows up in your face. Fulaking funny, isn't it?" he completed, still absolutely nowhere near smiling.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said seriously.

"Ever had a bomb blow up in your face?" Jux wondered, and even though that eye couldn't exactly convey emotion,  _somehow_ seemed to be staring at the Doctor in a very intimidating way and matching the other perfectly.

Unfortunately for the Doctor, since the morning's conversation with the mass murderers and having the time to take it in, he no longer had the capability to be intimidated by them anymore. "Me? Naaaah. I came close a couple of times. Well, actually, thinking about it..."

"Shut up," Jux grated.

"Oh, sorry," the Doctor said quickly.

"You apologise a lot."

"Do I? Sorry. Oh, whoops! I said sorry again, didn't I? Sorry. Oh! I mean, I'm not sorry. Well I am. But you know what I mean," the Doctor garbled out.

Jux just stared at him.

"We've got one eye on the perimeter," Tex suddenly said. "Your side, Jux."

"Excuse me," Jux said politely to the Doctor, leaning back in his chair and simultaneously pulling out his gun. He raised it so it was aiming through the open window and fired. There was a quiet squeal of a mortally wounded animal and a thud, before Jux put his gun away and righted his chair, taking another jereka pie – all in the space of two seconds.

The Doctor blinked in surprise. "Good shot," he said.

Jux looked at him again, and for the first time the Doctor actually saw the hint of what could actually have been a smile.

"You're not so bad, Time Lord," he said. "You stick with me. I'll look after you."

He reached for the last jereka pie, and handed it to the Doctor. The Doctor nodded in gratitude, and took a bite.

* * *

It had been an hour since Rose and Jackie had gone into the canteen in search of food, and they were still searching. The more people left, the more people seemed to arrive, and they were now wedged in the middle of a crowd trying desperately not to be trampled.

"God, sweetheart, I don't think the food's worth this much!" Jackie yelled to her daughter over the roar of the crowd.

"Well, we can't get out now!" Rose screamed back, and someone stepped on the foot of her broken leg. She instantly shrieked out in pain, but the ear-piercing shriek was still lost in the crowd.

"OI!" suddenly came an impossibly booming voice from the doorway, and within a heartbeat the entire canteen fell completely and totally silent and still.

Rose struggled to see through the crowd, and eventually managed to get a glance of Leo. She sighed, and rolled her eyes at her Mum as a signal it wasn't very important.

"I've got neeeews!" he said in a singsong voice. "But first, where are my two girly newbies?"

"Oh god," Rose muttered, instantly knowing  _exactly_ who he meant.

"Come forward, don't be shy!" Leo coaxed.

With a hefty sigh, Rose put up a hand. "Here," she called.

"Oi, dickheads, let the nice ladies through," Leo snapped, looking at the crowd. They quickly dispersed, allowing Jackie and Rose to get to the front where Leo was standing.

He smiled at the sight of them – but it wasn't a smile that seemed to contain any remnant of emotion whatsoever. "Maybe I was a bit of an arse earlier..."

"Just a tad," Jackie muttered.

"... Look, I wanna make it up to you. Did you get any food yet?" Leo continued, obviously not having heard that.

"No," Rose replied with a begrudging expression.

"Well, we gotta fix that! Oi! You!" he pointed at a man in the crowd. "Move your fat arse and get these ladies a nice big portion of food, yeah?"

The man went instantly.

Leo looked back at Rose and Jackie, that absurd smile spreading once again. "I've got some pretty fantastic news. That Time Lord of yours?" He looked up to address the crowd. "We've only gone and  _fucking found him!"_

The cheer that erupted nearly blew a hole through the roof. Leo held up a hand and they silenced again.

"What?" Rose yelped, her eyes wide. "Where is he? Is he here?"

"Fuck no, but we've found the alien base. We know  _exactly_ where he is, and those shithead aliens won't know what's hit 'em. We're gonna strike at 2am tonight while they're asleep. So everyone, forget your rations and eat until you puke out your fucking guts, cos we're getting out of here tomorrow!"

The next cheer was even louder than the last. Leo silenced them again, just as the man came back with a mess of food he was carrying in his shirt.

Leo regarded him with disgust. "What are you? A fucking  _moron?_ Get some plates you dog. These two are our special guests!"

"Sorry, sir!" the man squeaked.

"Sorry, sir!" Leo mimicked. "Jesus Christ, I've known you for thirty seconds and I'm already sick of you. Fucking shoot him."

"No, please!" the man begged, but it was too late. He was shot straight through the head.

Rose and Jackie gasped, moving back in alarm. "What did you do that for?!" Rose yelled, shocked.

Leo frowned slightly, staring at the body on the floor spilling blood everywhere. "Oh, you're right. That's not hygienic in a food area. You two." He pointed to two more people in the crowd. "Clean this shit up and you..." He pointed to a  _very_ nervous-looking woman. "All I ask for is some fucking  _food_ for these nice ladies on clean plates, all right? Or do I have to hammer that into your thick skull?"

"No, sir," she said quickly, and shoved her way through the crowd to the food counter.

"Right," Leo said, turning back to Jackie and Rose, both frozen on the spot. "You two enjoy your meal. Everyone else..." He looked up again. "Eat, do whatever business you gotta, arm yourself and get outside for a headcount. If I don't see everyone who's able to walk and pull a trigger out there, I'm gonna make sure you fucking regret it, all right? You guys... just fuck off."

He turned and left. Instantly the roar of the crowd resumed, shortly followed by the nervous woman coming up to them with two plates stacked full of what they  _presumed_  was some sort of food, and the struggle to find somewhere to eat began.


	9. Battlefield

"Doctor! DOCTOR!"

The Doctor jerked awake in the middle of the night, ripped from a strange dream about buffaloes to meet an absolute frenzy of panic in the room, as the aliens desperately searched for their weapons.

"Doctor, the humans have found the base, they're coming right for us!" Kilo yelled in a panic, still shaking his shoulder. "Get up and get out!"

He was fully awake now, sitting up and reaching for his leg braces and getting them on as fast as he could. Kilo handed him a headset and guided him through the door and into the hall, where Zow was busy setting fire to his magnificent resurrection machine.

"What are you doing?!" G'uj yelled at Zow, coming out of the kitchen as the Doctor fixed on his headset.

"They cannot have this, it must be destroyed," Zow replied simply.

"But..."

"I can build another. Get the Time Lord out of here."

G'uj nodded, grabbed the Doctor's arm, and was about to run when there was sudden,  _huge_ blast from the front end of the building that threw them off of their feet. There was a high-pitched scream over the comms.

"Tex!" the Doctor realised, making to get up and go back but G'uj held him in place.

"Not you, you've gotta leave!" G'uj yelled, helping him up.

" _What the fulak are they doing?! They know we've got the Time Lord!"_ Kilo yelled over the comms.

" _G'uj, get him OUT!"_ Vanaj demanded.

"On it!" G'uj replied, and made off with the Doctor again.

" _I can see them! K'ashi! There's thousands!"_ Kilo yelped.

" _Jux?!"_ Vanaj called.

" _You'll hear me,"_ Jux replied, and seconds later there was a massive blast from outside and shrieks from dying humans.

" _I heard that all right!"_ Kilo said in delight.

" _Keep firing, hold your ground!"_ Vanaj ordered.

The Doctor and G'uj made it to a window, and the young alien pulled it open with all his might.

"Get out," he told the Doctor. "We'll hold them off."

"I can't just leave you," the Doctor said quickly.

"We'll be fine," G'uj replied, offering a small smile.

" _Doctor, LEAVE!"_ Vanaj screamed down the headset, almost sending the Doctor deaf in one ear, quickly followed by the sound of gunfire.

G'uj practically shoved him out of the window, and he just about stumbled to his feet on the grass.

"Get to the ship and hide," G'uj told him. "We'll all join you in a minute." Then he left.

The Doctor had no choice but to turn and run across the concrete towards to distant ship, listening desperately to the comms.

" _I'm back!"_ a voice yelled in delight. It was Tex.  _"Miss me?"_

" _Oh, am I fulaking glad to hear your voice,"_ Vanaj said, laughing with joy.  _"Do your stuff!"_

" _We..."_

" _Got..."_

" _Trouble!"_ the triplets suddenly said.

Rekko spoke next, as frantic as always. _"Coming through...ARGH!"_

A massive explosion sounded, followed by the sound of a building collapsing.

" _Rekko? REKKO?!"_ Kilo yelled.  _"Zolo! Polo! Rolo?!"_

Silence.

The Doctor had reached the ship now, but he had stopped dead, listening for any sound of the four...

" _G'uj, get to them!"_ Vanaj ordered.

" _Yessir,"_ G'uj replied.

" _Oh, please don't 'sir' me..."_

" _Jux, I'm ordering your special!"_ Kilo suddenly yelled.

" _Coming right up, take cover,"_ Jux replied as calmly as ever. Seconds later a  _huge_ blast ripped out in all directions, so big it made the Doctor lose his balance and  _he_  was 200 metres away.

" _Don't call it the Jux special for nothing!"_ Kilo enthused.

" _Doctor? You still alive?" Vanaj asked._

"I'm here," he said quickly.

" _Right, figure we should get the fulak out of..."_

" _Vanaj,"_ G'uj's voice suddenly croaked.  _"It's Rekko... the triplets too."_

" _Are they hurt? Get them out the back."_

" _No, Vanaj... They're... They're all dead."_

Suddenly it went painfully silent on the comms. Even though the gunshots and explosions continued, it was as though they didn't exist but for echoes in the far,  _far_  distance.

" _No..."_ Tex whispered.

The Doctor leant back against the ship, his eyes wide as he watched and listened to the devastation, the utter  _carnage_  of death all because of him.  _Him._

"Get out!" he suddenly yelled, furious. "Just run! Give up the fight!"

" _Okay! Everyone just get out, get out now!"_ Vanaj commanded, and the Doctor breathed a sigh of utter relief. He watched the building with hawk eyes, waiting until he saw the hoard of aliens clamber out the back window and start running towards him.

" _Doctor, what are you doing?! Get in the ship!"_ Vanaj ordered.

The Doctor ignored him, scanning the group. Where was...

"G'uj? Zow?" he asked quickly.

Vanaj stopped dead, looking around at his company, still running.

" _K'ashi!"_ he swore.  _"G'uj? G'uj, answer me! Zow! Zow!"_

The Doctor was already running back to the building. Before Vanaj had a chance to process what was going on, the Doctor had already flashed past him and was back through the window.

" _DOCTOR!"_ Vanaj screamed.

" _I'll get him, you all run!"_ Kilo yelled, already halfway to the building.

" _Fulak!"_ Vanaj swore again, but his attentions were soon diverted when a barrage of gunfire came from the side, and they were all back to fighting.

* * *

The Doctor stumbled through debris, searching desperately for the two missing aliens. He found Rekko and the triplets pretty quickly, lying there in the corridor crushed below debris, all obviously dead from the roof falling onto them. He moved a little further and there was Zow bleeding from a couple of gunshot wounds, unconscious but breathing. Opposite was an obviously dead human. Both their guns were dropped by their sides. A little way away from the two was G'uj, also having been shot, moaning softly.

"Doctor, we've got to go!" Kilo yelled from behind him.

"Get Zow!" the Doctor yelled at him, running for G'uj. He reached the young alien and checked him over quickly.

"Doc... tor..." G'uj croaked through gasps for air. "Leave... me..."

"No man left behind," the Doctor told him firmly, gathering G'uj up in his arms to take him back to the exit window.

Kilo was efficient, already having got Zow. "Vanaj! We're on our way!"

" _You'd fulaking BETTER BE!"_ Vanaj screamed down the Doctor's earpiece, just as a massive blast rang out from behind him. The Doctor found himself instantly blown off of his feet, and being unable to throw out his arms for protection his head connected with something rather solid.

Dazed, he raised his head, a million thoughts rushing right through his brain. He knew he didn't have much time to get out before he passed out, and passing out in the middle of a war-zone wouldn't be very smart. So, he forced back the fog with blinking eyes and grabbed G'uj again. His eyes barely focused, as his already injured head throbbed badly in his skull. He could almost feel it expanding and contracting and touching the sides of his skull with every pulse. It felt like the worst headache he'd ever had in his life.

Somehow, he made it to the window. He pushed G'uj out and quickly followed, almost losing his balance on the landing.

" _Doctor, change of plan, get to the ship! We'll cover you!"_  somebody yelled through the earpiece; he was far too scatter-brained to figure out whom. But no matter. He scooped up G'uj and began to half run, half stagger in a direction he vaguely thought could be where the ship was.

" _Follow the Doctor!"_ someone ordered.

The Doctor had no idea how he managed it, but  _somehow_  he found the spaceship. Kilo took G'uj from him and grabbed the Time Lord's hand to help him up, where he promptly fell face first onto the floor of the ship as all his muscles abruptly stopped working.

"Doctor! Get up! Oh no... Vanaj, I think he's hurt!" he heard Kilo yell before he finally resigned to submit to the overwhelming urge to pass out, and everything fell to nothing.

* * *

As soon as the casualties and soldiers had started flooding in, Rose and Jackie went to the room where Leo hung out to listen for any news about the Doctor. But as soon as they neared the door they could hear the obligatory string of loud swear words pouring out of the Commander's mouth, which quickly made it very apparent that they hadn't found the Doctor. They decided not to go in, turning and walking in the opposite direction with sunken hearts.

They had to find a space on the floor to sleep; in a corridor with about a thousand other humans. The stench was incredible, but their only choice was try and ignore it.

Jackie fell asleep quite quickly, but Rose lay awake due to the pain in her leg. Silently she looked to the skies and closed her eyes, hoping and praying this would be over soon. If only for her mum's sake.

" _Doctor, I'm playin' the game, but please, we can't stay here for much longer. Please come back,"_ she thought inside her head, as if hoping he was going to hear her and come running through that door.

She watched the door for two long hours. He didn't come.

* * *

"We're really low on fuel," Vanaj muttered, staring at the gauge on the ship with his hands on the controls. They were flying slowly across the width of England – any direction had been favourable – just to get away from the battlefield.

"We should be safe to land around here somewhere," Tex replied, hammering away at her computer. "The humans have retreated."

Vanaj nodded. "We've probably got about ten minutes before we run out. Jux, how're the patients?" he called back over his shoulder.

"Still here!" G'uj yelled for Jux, thumb in the air with a mess of blood-stained clothes pressed to his torso.

"The others aren't awake yet," Jux replied, looking between Zow and the Doctor. He had been a soldier so knew basic field medicine, but he had absolutely no materials to work with. The ship had run out of its standard supplies ages ago when he'd built it with Zow; the stocked medicines used up on patients before. They'd never bothered to get supplies – not after the resurrection machine. But Zow was in bad shape, having been shot right in the chest, twice. The Doctor wasn't fairing much better. Jux had had to get shards of debris out of his back and legs and he hadn't batted an eyelid since he'd collapsed.

"K'ashi," Vanaj breathed. "If they die, this is over."

Nobody answered that.

* * *

The Doctor was getting used to waking up in a different place every time he closed his eyes now, so it wasn't as much of a shock as maybe it should have been when he opened them to find he was half-naked in the bed of a student's room.

He was dazed for a few moments, looking around the strange room with a throbbing head, as always. Posters adorned the walls, and clothes and rubbish were everywhere. Some books on law were piled on a computer desk beneath a load of magazines, and a menagerie of gadgets were scattered around the room at random. Two people were sitting next to him, and had noticed him awake.

"Doctor," Kilo said, grinning. "K'ashi, thought we'd lost you there."

"Is everyone okay?" the dazed Time Lord asked quietly.

"I'm okay, thanks to you," G'uj told him seriously.

"Zow?"

The two aliens looked at each other, expressions of happiness rapidly fading.

"Not so good," Kilo confessed. "That jai'kl human got him bad. Shot him twice, right in the chest."

"I've got... I've gotta medical kit," the Doctor breathed, gesturing redundantly at his trousers slung over a chair.

"We know," G'uj replied, looking a little embarrassed.

"We nicked it, hope you don't mind," Kilo said honestly.

The Doctor shook his head, and realised that had been a bad idea as the pain in his head surged like fire.

"You should get some sleep," G'uj said quietly.

"We won't move until morning," Kilo confirmed.

"Kilo?" a voice asked from the doorway. "Oh thank Kichi, he's awake."

"Vanaj," Kilo acknowledged. "How's Zow?"

Vanaj shook his head, slowly. "No progress. He's... He's asking to see the Doctor."

Everybody looked at the Doctor, who was just as surprised as they were. "Me?"

"Yeah. Are you up for seeing him?"

"... Yeah. I will."


	10. Death is a Midnight Runner

The Doctor was without his leg braces and his body had succumbed to total exhaustion, so Kilo had carried the Doctor through the corridor across the hall, into another student room, where the unmistakable form of Zow was lying unmoving on the bed.

Kilo had sat the Doctor down in a chair close to the bed, and stepped back. There was a long, silent pause, as the Doctor wasn't quite sure what to do for a moment.

"Zow?" he eventually asked quietly.

The alien opened his eyes, gazing up at the Doctor. He lifted a trembling hand, and pressed it to the Time Lord's head. The Doctor held it in place for him, gazing into Zow's eyes.

 _"I never thought I would be such a horrible person,"_ Zow's voice came through, telepathic.

 _"No one is saying you are,"_ the Doctor replied telepathically.

_"But I am. I have done so much in my life, Time Lord. I have seen so much. I have lost so much. But I never should have built that machine. I was naïve. I thought so many things could be done with it, for good, but I realise now that I am a monster. I should never have cheated life. Things are meant to die."_

The Doctor shook his head.  _"No, what you built... that's amazing. It's beyond incredible. Don't think it was a bad thing."_

" _I became a god; no one should have that power. No one. I think you understand that."_

The Doctor eventually nodded. _"Maybe no one should have control over life and death, but that resurrection machine was proof of what can be done. The technology we can make. I've never seen anything like it. You are an absolute genius, Zow."_

_"I am just an old man with far too many stories to tell. I thought the machine could be used for so much good. I planned to offer its use to people free of charge, but the government turned on me, cut my funding, and planned to assassinate me. In their haste the machine was damaged, it heavily malfunctioned and it killed everyone on my planet except for me, Doctor. Even my family, my two dear children, my loving wife."_

The Doctor swallowed. _"I know the feeling."_

_"For all the horror it had caused, I vowed never to build it again. I fled to Earth to live a solitary life, and found myself a victim of the shifter in this gangrenous world. There is so much death here and the others... They have so little respect for life. So I rebuilt the machine... I thought if I could revive their dead they may eventually realise the futility of their fight. But I was foolish. They have only taken more lives. The beauty of living creatures is but a joke to them. That machine is nothing but a pure demon, and may its secrets die with me."_

_"You're not going to die."_

_"Of course I am. It feels so silly that what I was constantly trying to cheat was the one thing I would crave in the end. I am happy to die, Doctor."_

_"You just need to make the right things, Zow. The right things for the right people. Like my leg braces. They're an amazing invention. How you treated me was beyond the known laws of medicine – Jascak's Theorem, I have never found anything to contradict it until I met you. I should have been quadriplegic, but it's like I was never hurt. Before now I would have had to force a regeneration for the way I live my life, but with those legs braces it's like I have two completely functioning legs again. I don't even have to think about moving them. That is the happiness you could bring to so many paraplegic people like me."_

_"It doesn't even matter, Doctor. My inventions will eventually become weapons, a means to a bloody end without my even knowing. It all comes to death in the end. Death is a midnight runner, the one constant, and it should not be ignored. I ignored it, I made a mockery of it, and I have now paid my dues, as fate laughs in my face."_

The Doctor's eyes dropped to the bed covers, acknowledging Zow's words without any indication.

 _"You know, I have met you once before,"_ Zow continued.

_"When?"_

_"You were but a child. You came to my planet with your family. You ate in the café I worked in."_

The Doctor frowned.  _"How do you know it was me?"_

_"Your eyes. You still have your mother's eyes, despite how your face has changed. Eyes that even now are wide and open for the universe to enter. To gaze upon the Universe with such astonished eyes must be a pleasure indeed. It took my breath away when I saw you all those years ago. I had often wondered what had happened to that little boy, and perhaps the ties of fate draw us back together now for my end."_

_"But that would make you..."_ The Doctor struggled to work out the linear timeline for a moment. _"It'd make you 11,000 years old."_

_"Doesn't time fly? For me, it has flown. Good bye, Doctor. I have failed. If anyone can change these poor men to respect life, it's you, I'm sure."_

The Doctor gazed at him some more, his eyes searching that poor alien lying there, knowing he was about to die.  _"You are far too clever for this universe, Zow. We just aren't ready for you."_

For the first time, the Doctor saw Zow smile. A little curve up of the mouth, warmth in his eyes.

" _Thank you for listening to a dying man's thoughts, Time Lord. God speed, my friend."_

Zow's hand slackened, and his eyes closed as the last breath escaped him, his smile disappearing.

"Zow?" Vanaj asked anxiously, running forward to shake his shoulder. "Zow! Zow, talk to me!"

The Doctor simply took Zow's hand off of his head, placing it carefully on the alien's stomach.

"Vanaj, leave him," he said quietly.

"He's dead?" G'uj croaked.

The Doctor nodded solemnly. "I'm so sorry."

"How could you let him  _die?!"_ Kilo suddenly yelled, grabbing the Doctor to shake him. Vanaj quickly manhandled Kilo, dragging him from the Time Lord.

"This wasn't the Doctor, Kilo. This was the humans. The humans did this. The humans killed Zow, Rekko, Zolo, Polo and Rolo."

"Let's fulaking kill those jai'kls, then!" Kilo swore. "Every last one!"

"Where do we start?" G'uj asked.

"We'll bomb the k'ashi out of their base!" Kilo yelled, his eyes on fire. "Blow it to smithereens! Jux, you got a cocktail for that?"

"If required," Jux replied, as stoic as ever.

"We can get fuel for the craft somewhere if we look hard enough," Kilo continued.

"Just a straight overhead attack," Tex planned, already calculating it on her computer. "We'll wipe them all..."

"No," the Doctor suddenly said, staring at the ground, hand on his mouth as he tried desperately not to cry.

Everyone suddenly stopped, looking at him.

"What?" Kilo asked, stunned.

"You're not doing that."

Tex was astounded. "Just  _who's side_ are you on, Time Lord?!"

"We're gonna get these jai'kls, for Zow, for Rekko, for the triplets!" Kilo yelled, and raised his gun straight at the Doctor's head. "If you're not on our side you're on no one's side!"

"But Kilo, the Switch..." Jux began quickly.

"Ha! The Switch!" Kilo practically laughed out with a complete craziness in his eyes. "Not like he's come up with anything yet! I bet he don't even know where it is! He's made us protect him, he's let these people die for him and he's been lying to us all along!"

"Get that away from him," Jux grated, drawing out his own weapon to point at Kilo.

"I'll kill you too, Jux!" Kilo screamed. "Don't think I won't!"

The Doctor was suddenly furious. "Listen to yourselves!" he screamed. He was aware he'd now  _totally_  lost control, but right now he didn't much care. "You've completely lost  _all_  reasoning! Zow didn't want this! He didn't want you to  _avenge_ him or anything like that! He didn't want you to start killing each other! Deal with your grief in a different way! Just stop the violence, stop it for  _one night,_ we need to honour those five because they're dead, and there's no resurrection machine to bring them back this time! You should take this night to respect their lives by giving them your attention, not by causing  _more_ death!"

Kilo made for the trigger, but Vanaj launched out to grab his arm, staring at his old friend. "The Doctor's right, Kilo."

"You're with him too, now?!" Kilo burst out, but he was in tears.

"Kilo, please," Vanaj said gently. "I know your pain, believe me. But he's right."

"But... they were my friends," Kilo gasped, collapsing onto Vanaj in tears. The gun slipped out of his hand redundantly, hitting the floor with a quiet thud as he sobbed his heart out into Vanaj's chest.

All fell silent but for Kilo's sobs of utter despair. Vanaj looked at the Doctor, still holding Kilo in comfort.

"What should we do, Doctor?"

"... We need to have a funeral for Zow, Rekko and the triplets."

Vanaj nodded. "Then that's what we will do."

* * *

It was now midnight, and they'd dug a grave for Zow. After they had filled it Vanaj had marked the spot with a Jazan symbol for life; just a finger tracing a symbol in the dirt. Tex and Kilo had followed suit, carving the symbols in their own languages for friendship and strength beside his. The Doctor watched on, and G'uj held him supportively in case he weakened and fell over.

"Af'o fo'liala'ia, fo time'o. N'af fo angeli'ia shala ce'helogorei'ia. Aiiw chaiya'nia, ei'looi. N'lei baine, tera ei'af wiia'ih. N'lei gan'terna'eon, ei'holah'aiiw... Miho'wiia qe, alok'ia'ei," the Doctor whispered, staring at the mud of Zow's grave. He couldn't help it. He couldn't stop the tears. And for once, he let them fall freely.

These people were dead because of him. They'd died protecting him. All those humans that had been in that fight – all fighting to get him. All the death. Because of  _him._

He wasn't sure he could cope with that.

The funeral ended in the rain. They were about to leave, when the Doctor held up a hand, still staring at the grave.

"The... The Switch is in the Lake District, on the top of Scafell Pike," he said quietly.

Vanaj nodded. Nobody else spoke. "There'll be no more fighting. When dawn breaks, we'll set off. Everyone try and get some rest."

* * *

It was around 2am when another paper aeroplane arrived. Rose snatched it up immediately – a written note on the back of some sort of Law essay. But this note was all wonky, the words changing size as they went along, the whole thing only just about legible.

_Rose, Jackie,_

_Things aren't good. We've fled our base with casualties, five have died. The others are on a knife edge. I can't let anymore people die because of me. I'm going to start leading them to the Switch, so both of you start heading to the Lake District. I'll meet you there. Be careful._

_The Doctor_

"Mum!" she yelled loudly, and Jackie came to her instantly. "Read this."

Jackie did, her eyes widening. "What's wrong with his writing? I can't even read that."

"I dunno," Rose muttered. "He says five of them are dead and he's going to take the ones left to the Switch to stop the fighting because of him. He says to get there and meet him."

"It says that?" Jackie asked seriously.

"We've gotta go," Rose said quickly, making to the window. She was about to climb out when a voice suddenly stopped her dead – frozen on the spot.

"Going somewhere?" Leo wondered.

Rose spun around instantly to meet the man's hard gaze, stunned like a blow between the eyes. "Umm..."

"What's that?" he asked, pointing at the piece of paper in her hand.

Rose's heart skipped a beat. "Um, nothin', it's nothin'..."

Before she could hide it Leo snatched it from her, and she started panicking badly, trying to grab it back but he held it out of reach.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, this thing must be fucking important," Leo stated, and began to read the note from the Doctor. Rose's heart sank like a stone as his eyes ran across the page, widening with every word.

His head snapped up to her. "You were gonna leave for the Lake District without saying good bye?! Fucking shame on you, girl, I thought we were friends?"

Rose had utterly no reply. Her mouth opened and closed but no words came out, like a speechless fish. Jackie had nothing either, looking between Leo and Rose in a panic.

"So the Switch is in the Lake District. Interesting," Leo mused, scrunching up the paper and chucking it behind him. "And interesting he should tell  _you_. I guess you mean something to him if he can be arsed to keep in contact with you. Good."

He dived forward to grab Rose's arm, yanking her back out of the door.

"No! What're you doin'?" Jackie yelped.

"I'm gonna get me a Time Lord!" Leo screamed in delight.

"Mum, stay here!" Rose begged as she disappeared around the corner.

"Like bloody hell I am!" Jackie yelled, running after them as quickly as she could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation
> 
> Af'o fo'liala'ia, fo time'o. N'af fo angeli'ia shala ce'helogorei'ia.  
> Aiiw chaiya'nia, ei'looi.  
> N'lei baine, tera ei'af wiia'ih. N'lei gan'terna'eon, ei'holah'aiiw...  
> Miho'wiia qe, alok'ia'ei.
> 
> There are no flowers, no not this time. There'll be no angels gracing the lines.  
> Just these stark words, I find.  
> I'd show a smile, but I'm too weak. I'd share with you could I only speak...  
> Just how much this, hurts me.
> 
> ... Which are the lyrics from the aptly titled AFI song "This Time Imperfect". SEE WHAT I DID THERE?! :D


	11. But That's Impossible!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is how you break Doctor Who canon, friends! :D

The Doctor woke up, hit by the usual blinding headache, only this time it felt about ten times worse than usual.

He could barely open his eyes, and his whole body was aching. But the headache was so much he knew he'd have to find some form of painkiller in order to go back to sleep, so he forced open his eyes and consequently the early morning light hit him like a bullet to the brain. A tiny yelp escaped his mouth, and he shut them again instantly.

For ten minutes he laid there, progressively opening and closing his eyes until his pupils agreed to dilate accordingly. Through now squinted eyes the room around him was spinning and blurring and merging together in some kind of crazy drug trip, but eventually he managed to get a sense of the vague direction where he'd find his medical kit.

He dared to sit up, dragging his aching muscles; each one a cold, dead weight. The act of sitting up alone took all the breath out of him instantly. He squinted to see the trousers and his leg braces on the chair, three metres away, but without any function in his legs this was almost positively going to be an ordeal.

Deciding he wasn't going to be defeated, he moved his legs sideways with his hands and hung them over the edge of the bed. He then tried to lift his body with his hands flat on the bed, but ended up uncontrollably falling flat on his face on the floor with a comical thump.

After a significant amount of time, he managed to raise his head again and started shimmying himself with his elbows towards the medical kit. After three minutes of pure stubbornness, he finally got to the chair, and reached up blindly to his trousers, rummaging in the pockets until his hand clasped on the medical kit. He pulled it out, and after a few minutes of fumbling he'd sorted out the needle gun and fired a painkiller right into his temple.

With a contented sigh, he let his head drop whilst he just waited for the pain to recede. It was ten seconds before the painkiller kicked in and his head was blissfully released from its hell.

He laid there for a few more minutes, just breathing. With every breath, his brain was rushing. Thoughts of Rose flooded his head. He hoped she was on the way to the Lake District by now. Once they met up he could be sure her and her mother were both safe, and he could start trying to sort this whole mess out.

He sighed. "Rose..." he muttered, and finally sat up. He reached for his leg braces and fixed them on, before getting dressed and heading to the door, lumbering like an 80-year-old with a back problem.

He made it out into the corridor, and was met by Vanaj coming the other way. He stopped dead at the sight of the utterly bedraggled Time Lord.

"Are you all right?" he asked, seemingly genuinely concerned.

"Yeah... Just need some air," the Doctor replied, giving a half-smile.

Vanaj nodded, stepping aside to let him pass.

* * *

He emerged into the grounds, and instantly realised where he was. He was, as he'd suspected, in a University Hall's residence, but now he recognised it as Oxford University. He was in Oxford, and it was a  _very_ long way to their destination.

He dropped to sit down on the expanse of grass, and laid flat on his back, staring at the sky. He was just about to let the usual millions of thoughts rush through his head when suddenly the ground beneath him started to shake violently in a fully-fledged earthquake. He didn't have any time to even be stunned at that as suddenly he was bouncing around like a rubber ball with rumbling and booming all around him. He scrambled desperately for the nearby tree to get a grip on it and ride this strange phenomenon out.

Cars parked around were bouncing up and down at least half a metre in the air, and there was a loud cracking sound – the Doctor knew it instantly as the University itself began to come down, crumbling and shifting before walls began to fall to the ground like a tower of cards. He looked up in alarm – the others were still inside...

"Doctor!" a voice suddenly screamed, before another rip and crash signalled more of the university tumbling to the ground.

"I'm here!" he yelled back to whoever had called, but the shaking was getting even worse, and the booming was getting louder. His head was jerking so hard back and forth that he was almost afraid of his neck breaking.

The booming was getting louder, and suddenly a huge shadow cast over him like the sun had just been covered over. He  _very_ quickly realised it, in fact, had. And this wasn't an earthquake.

There was a creature, so incomprehensibly large that even the Doctor had to think for a while to come up with anything else in the entire universe that was bigger than it. As he kept being thrown about it was difficult to take a  _really_ good look, but he could tell the vague details. It had four legs, and if the Doctor had any inclination whatsoever to stand beside it, the top of his head probably wouldn't even reach the creature's knee. Its neck, holding its head, was so far up in the sky the Doctor could barely even see it. As it slowly moved towards him it was stepping on the nearby foliage; crushing the five metre tall trees with the ease of stepping on cornflakes.

It was a dinosaur, the Doctor was sure. A sauropod. Maybe even a Sauroposeidon, or at least an evolved form of one... But that was completely impossible.

He caught sight of the group of aliens running out of the University that was quickly decimating into a pile of rubble on the ground, as were all the other buildings he could see in range. He scrambled to his feet to join them, but was sent back down again when the creature stepped one last time towards him; now barely twenty metres away. It stopped, and it took around fifteen full seconds for the trembles to become manageable and the Doctor finally succeeded in getting upright.

But there was something else. Some sort of life-form was sitting atop of the dinosaur like a mount. The head moved to look around the dinosaur's gargantuan neck, and peered straight at him. In a vivid flashback the Doctor recognised what it was from a drawing he'd seen in a Gallifreyan school book at the Time Academy a thousand years ago.

It was a member of the Ingensias Colossus species, albeit, a slightly more evolved one. The long extinct race of giants that had lived on the planet Ingens, they were a much more peaceful and lot smaller sub-species of the Great Vampires – dragged into the universe along with their bloodthirsty world-destroying distant relatives supposedly when Rassilon and Omega had accidentally punch a hole through to the colossal species' realm. Their peaceful nature had not made them a target for the Time Lords in the war against the Great Vampires in the Dark Times and they had lived quite contentedly for many millions of years… Until there came to be so many Ingensias Colossus that their planet's food supply had not been able to sustain them, and they had wiped out around 300 million years ago prior to current Earth time.

Well, this was pretty impossible.

But there was no denying... seeing both these creatures together in such an unlikely place first-hand felt like a complete pleasure. Just a pretty impossible complete pleasure.

He thought about that, and quickly decided he was sick of many things happening recently being apparently impossible. He was just going to  _accept_ this. It was only an evolved Ingensias Colossus sitting atop a possible evolved domesticated sauropod dinosaur. It happened all the time.

"Doctor!" a voice screamed again, and it acted like the starting gun. He began to run back to the frankly terrified aliens, but then felt a sense of dread and impending doom wash over him in a profound biological warning. A second later, something scooped him up off the ground in mid run and he was lifted about fifty feet into the air.

This wasn't good. Not good at all.

* * *

Vanaj and the others could only watch, utterly helpless, as the Time Lord was swiftly plucked off of the ground like a scuttling insect. He was lifted so high into the air by the giant man, where for a moment it just stared at the tiny humanoid in its clutch.

"Vanaj!" G'uj yelped. "Do we shoot?!"

"I don't fulaking know!" Vanaj practically squeaked in return.

* * *

"YOU ARE THE TIME LORD?!" the Colossus roared. The Doctor flinched quite badly to the impact of the ejecting breath that came with the words, like he'd been caught in a temporary hurricane, but eventually managed to compose himself just enough to reply.

"That'll be me!" the certified Time Lord affirmed in a voice halfway between croaking and squeaking, the air completely blown out of lungs from the grip the Colossus had on him.

"OKAY!" it boomed, big blue eyes gazing down at him with an affirming smile on its face. "MY NAME IS NIGEL! IT'S VERY NICE TO MEET YOU!"

"Pleasure, Nigel! I'm the Doctor!" the Doctor squeaked out.

"I AM SORRY, AM I HOLDING YOU TOO HARD?!" Nigel asked suddenly, looking a little guilty.

"Just... Just a tad!" the Doctor gasped out, indicating with his finger and thumb close together.

"SORRY!" Nigel said sincerely, and relaxed his grip, a little too much as the Doctor slipped through like a wet bar of soap and was suddenly plummeting towards the ground.

"OOPS!" Nigel exclaimed, catching him with his other hand in mid-fall. "SORRY!"

The Doctor had just had the shock of his life as he'd nearly fallen fifty feet into the hard, unrelenting ground where certain death had been wholly imminent, but he tried not to let that disgruntle him, as Nigel was really quite nice and friendly and it had been a genuine mistake. "That's okay!" the Time Lord assured him.

"OH, YOU'RE SO REASONABLE AND LOVELY!" Nigel boomed happily. "I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO MEET THE OTHERS!"

The Doctor frowned. "Wait, others? Ahhh!" he yelped as Nigel and the dinosaur began to turn to go back. He strained his head around to try and find Vanaj and the others, knowing he  _had_ to get a message to them...

"VANAJ!" he screamed. "FIND ROSE! SHE CAN HELP YOU!"

* * *

"WHADDYA MEAN ROSE?!" Vanaj practically screamed as the giant turned, the earthquake returning and sending all the aliens to the ground. "DOCTOR! WHAT KIND OF ROSE?!"

"Can we shoot, yet?!" Kilo screamed over the booms of the walking dinosaur.

"Yes! Shoot it, shoot it!" Vanaj cried, but no one could get any kind of accurate, stable shot with their guns as the earthquake was sending them all over the place. By the time they could get their footing again the giants were far away in the distance, and had taken the Time Lord with them.

"Go after it!" Vanaj yelled, and the five began to run.

* * *

Rose had been watching the signs, and they'd revealed that they were somewhere in Oxford. Leo had gathered a group of about fifty humans and set off in cars towards the Lake District, and locked her and her mum into the back of a half mangled minibus with very little chance of escape.

She couldn't believe this. She was leading the humans straight to the Doctor – and with the way these humans treated their own, Rose dreaded to think what they would do to the Doctor if he refused to use the Switch for them.

It was all her fault.

Her mum was next to her, noticing her expression.

"Oh sweetheart," Jackie sighed, drawing her daughter into a hug. "Everything's gonna be okay. The Doctor'll sort it."

"Yeah..." Rose sighed. "I really miss him, Mum."

"I know."

"It... What was that?"

Jackie looked at her, seeing Rose staring at the floor of the van with wide eyes, her arms braced on nearby surfaces.

"What?" she asked, but the question was answered for her when suddenly the van seemed to jolt. And then more. And then even more. And then Jackie realised that it wasn't the van – it was the world outside too... "What the 'ell is goin' on?! It's a bloody earthquake!"

"No, Mum, look!" Rose yelped whilst struggling to stay upright, pointing out the window.

Jackie looked, and screamed.

"Oh my god! It's a bloody giant ridin' a bloody dinosaur!" she shrieked.

The driver had stopped the van and run out now, but they were still flying all over the place. Buildings were falling, the road was cracking, and people were screaming in terror at the giants they could see coming straight towards them.

They had to get out. Rose tried the door handle, but it was completely jammed.

"Come on!" she yelled to her mother, climbing awkwardly out the front to get out of the driver's door. She got onto solid ground, and was instantly apprehended by Leo, grabbing her around the neck and putting a gun to her head.

"Don't think you're  _fucking_ getting away from me!" he screamed over the sounds of chaos around them, spittle flying in her face.

"We need to get away from here!" Rose screamed back at him. "It's gonna kill us!"

Leo didn't even acknowledge that, dragging her along with his fingernails digging into the skin of her neck, off of the road and towards a forest.

Jackie was still trying get out of the minibus, struggling as the Earth itself around her moved. She was panicking to say the least, screaming to her daughter but not being heard. When she'd finally managed to get free, a building at the side of the road collapsed sideways and dropped right in front of her – blocking her off to her daughter.

"ROSE!" she screamed, tears running down her face. "ROSE!"

But she was gone.


	12. Alliance

Together the group of aliens were moving as fast as they could through the decimated forest, following the path of destruction. This was quite hard to do when the world continued to collapse around them.

Due to the size and weight of the giants it wasn't hard to keep up – they moved slowly and obviously – the problem was more trying to navigate the destruction they were causing. They had just swept right through the forest, leaving trees fallen, giant crater footprints and a trail of flat animals in their wake.

But the aliens had to get the Doctor back. Not just for the Switch. It wasn't about that anymore. It was the Doctor they wanted; their friend and comrade. They needed to save him.

As they forged onwards, there steadily grew the sound of screaming and crashing of more collapsing buildings. It could only really mean one thing – the humans. But they chose to ignore it. They chose to keep running, to follow the giants to wherever they were taking the Time Lord. At least until two humans emerged from the forest right in front of them, a male in almost full body armour dragging another one, a woman in plain clothes, by the neck.

The man caught sight of them, and his eyes shot wide open. He rammed a gun against the woman's head; a big, horrible smile appeared on his face.

"Tell the Doctor I've got a little fucking present for him!" the man yelled, his face full of nothing but malice.

Kilo frowned, looking at the others around him who were also frowning. They couldn't understand the human language.

"What did the human say, Tex?" Vanaj asked, looking back at the woman.

Tex was busy hammering into her tech-pad, but was obviously getting nothing in return.

"I don't know, sorry," she replied.

"I'm not fucking kidding!" Leo yelled. "I will shoot her god damn brains out if he doesn't get out here right now!"

"We don't have time for this," Jux grated. "Can't understand a k'ashing word it's saying."

"He said to tell the Doctor to show himself or this guy's gonna kill me!" the human woman next to the man said, quite surprisingly in the recognisable universal language, absolutely perfectly fluent.

Vanaj looked at the others, who were stunned. "You know Uniuxian?"

Before the woman got to reply the gun pressed harder into her head.

"Stop speaking your fucking language of retards and  _give me the Time Lord!"_ he shrieked.

"He wants the Doctor, pretty much now!" the woman translated for the aliens.

"You can go ahead and get shot in the head, human, we don't care, and the Doctor's not here!" Kilo yelled back sharply.

The woman's eyes widened. "Where is he?"

"That's none of your business!" Kilo snapped.

Vanaj suddenly held up his hand, stopping Kilo. "Wait! Human," he began, looking at the woman. "You know Uniuxian. How do you know Uniuxian?"

"My name's Rose, I travel with the Doctor, he's got this ship called the TARDIS which translates everythin' I say and everythin' I hear..."

She suddenly broke off in mid-sentence, squealing as the man fired a shot right in front of her eyes, and placed it back on her head.

"GIVE, ME, THE, DOCTOR!" he absolutely roared.

"Still wants the Doctor!" the human called Rose clarified.

"By Kichi," Vanaj breathed. "Rose. He said Rose. He said to find Rose!"

Kilo scoffed. "What should he care about a human? Let's just shoot her and use the surprise."

"What's important about a human?" Tex asked seriously. "What can she do?"

"He said she can help us," G'uj explained, glancing at Vanaj.

"But it's just a human," Kilo insisted. "What's  _one_  human?"

"... She travels with him, she must mean something to him," Vanaj muttered.

"We should save her," G'uj said quickly.

"I agree," Jux said, nodding.

"Are you mad?" Kilo asked, wide-eyed. "This is  _his_  problem. We can't risk it all for this stupid k'ashi!"

"I trust him, Kilo," G'uj told him. "He saved my life... He went back for me and Zow even though we were more likely to be dead. If he says she can help us then I trust him."

Everyone looked at Vanaj, waiting for a decision. He sighed, and rolled back his shoulders.

"All right. For the Doctor. Aim for the legs, they're the most open body part, the rest's in armour. We'll leave him bleeding. Hey, Rose!"

Rose looked at him, trying to be covert.

"Listen to my count, and on three you run to us, okay?"

"How can I trust you?" Rose shot back.

"The Doctor said to find you, that you could help us!" Vanaj yelled back.

"What are you  _fucking_ talking about?!" the man spat. "I swear to god I'm shooting this bitch in ten seconds if I don't see the Doctor!"

"Okay!" Rose squeaked. "I'm with you!"

Vanaj nodded. "Ready? 1... 2... 3!"

Rose shot out of the man's grip, taking him completely by surprise. Unfortunately for him he didn't have any time to react before he was caught by two bullets straight in his right thigh. His leg practically shot backwards from beneath him and with a scream of pain ripping from his lips, his gun dropped onto the forest floor and disappeared under the leaves.

"Run!" Vanaj ordered, grabbing the human woman's arm and dragging her behind him as the group ran, desperate to get away from all the humans.

"Mum!" Rose yelled, but Jackie was nowhere to be seen and the aliens weren't listening to her. They only noticed her when they realised she was stumbling due to her leg, and a big beefy one with half his face missing picked her up and slung her over his shoulder, continuing to run.

* * *

"Get the  _fuck_ off of me!" Leo cursed the woman trying to tend to his leg. He roughly shoved her away and continued to grip his damaged leg in both hands, groaning in pain. He looked up at Jackie standing there, staring at him. "Right, sorry, what were you saying? Just busy  _bleeding_ here, but don't fucking mind it."

Jackie ignored that. "Where's Rose?!" she demanded to know, her arms akimbo.

"I'm sorry," Leo began insincerely. "I don't remember  _you_  being important."

Jackie was suddenly absolutely raging, as though someone had just flicked the switch on her back marked 'fury'. "You wanna bloody fight?! I'll give you one!"

"Don't make me laugh," Leo sneered, and looked at the medical woman again with narrowed eyes. "Come on, why the hell are you standing there like a fucking plum? In case you hadn't noticed!" He gestured to his leg again, and she instantly got back to work.

"I don't know who the  _bloody_ hell you think you are but that was my daughter you dragged out there and left  _God_ knows where and I need to find her right now!" she screamed right in his face, and it genuinely made him flinch for a moment. So much so he got a little embarrassed at his reaction, cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders to regain some of his lost dignity.

"Aliens fucking took her, didn't they."

Jackie blinked, stunned. "What?"

"You fucking deaf? I said the aliens took that slag."

Jackie swallowed, eyes wide. "We've... we've gotta find her!"

"Who gives a shit about her?" he snapped. "The Time Lord wasn't even with them!"

"He wasn't..." Jackie began to repeat, but stopped herself as her brain desperately tried to work out the situation in her head. It took a few moments until everything slid into place. "Right, I'll bloody find her myself, then," she said, turning on her heel, and striding out the door in determination.

"Good luck!" Leo called out after her, his voice absolutely dropping with sarcasm. "Hope you don't get shot and killed!"

* * *

The group of aliens had been following the giant all day. Not one of them could drive a vehicle so they had walked all day. A day that pretty soon turned to night, and with the night came the cold and rain.

They were all cold and exhausted, and eventually had to resign to stop and stay in a house somewhere near Coventry, that hadn't been destroyed in the giant's path, to continue the trail the next morning.

Rose knew her current company were all mass murderers who hated humans, but she was clinging onto the single fact that she knew the Doctor. He had made her important to them. She was worth keeping alive for a much better reason than Leo had had. But she had to make sure they knew she wasn't on the human's side, and to do that she had to forget about her mum. Which was an absolutely ridiculous notion, she knew, but asking these mass murdering human-hating aliens to go back to find her mother was not something that they would happily accept.

In short, she had absolutely no idea what to do about her mum. She could only have faith that Jackie had learnt to fight a little these past few days – that she would have the sense to stick where she was and play the game until either Rose or the Doctor could get to her.

The group of misfits were all now making introductions in the living room – all of them, with the exception of Kilo, who'd just left the room as quickly as he could.

"So the Doctor... is  _with_ those giants?" Rose asked seriously.

Vanaj nodded at her question. "Well... Yes."

Rose sighed. "Sounds like him."

"It just picked him up and took him," G'uj said quietly.

"Because he's a Time Lord?" Rose asked.

Vanaj shrugged, looking at Jux and Tex. "We guess so. He said you could help us?"

She frowned slightly. "I think... I think he means this." She reached into her pocket and pulled out the Doctor's last note, giving it to Vanaj. "He can contact me."

Vanaj read it with wide eyes. "He's been contacting you?" he finally asked, looking up.

She nodded, really trying to gauge how the aliens felt about that. "He'll probably send another soon, to tell us what to do. He wanted you to find me, yeah?"

She waited for the reaction. All of the aliens just sat there for a moment, taking in this revelation. It was a very long and very painful minute until Vanaj finally looked up, glanced at the others, and nodded.

"Okay," he said. "So the question is, do we follow the trail or do we stick here and wait for the Doctor to contact us?"

Rose internally breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "I dunno. He needs to keep track of us... I think we should stick here."

G'uj was drumming his fingers on his little pointy chin. "I agree," he finally said.

"But what if he doesn't get a message to us?" Tex wondered.

"If we just follow the trail we could just get him out and go to the Switch," Jux pointed out.

"It could take days," Vanaj countered. "We didn't know where the fulak it's taking him or what kind of army it's got. If there's a whole k'ashi ton of those things we haven't got a hope in hell."

Jux nodded, acknowledging that. "Vote?" he proposed.

"Yeah. We need Kilo in here, though. Oi, Kilo!" Vanaj yelled, and it was a few moments until Kilo appeared, his eyes narrowed.

"What?!" he practically spat.

"We need to vote. Rose has got a way to communicate with the Doctor and we might stay here until he contacts us. Are you in or out?"

"Are you fulaking  _crazy?!"_ Kilo yelped, angry. "You're trusting this jai'kl human?  _Just like that?!"_

Rose flinched a little and Tex moved slightly forward to protect her, her hand going near her gun.

Vanaj just sighed. "Kilo, needs must. She's not like the other humans."

"Rubbish!" Kilo scoffed. "Can't you see she's just  _lying_ to you?"

"The Doctor told us to find Rose, Kilo, and this is Rose..."

"He's probably in on it too! He's been sending secret messages to the humans telling them where we are!

"Kilo!" Vanaj stood up, suddenly incredibly authoritative. "This is..."

"Oh, come on Vanaj!" Kilo interrupted. "How else could the humans have found our base?! He told them, he told  _her,_ he  _killed_ Rekko, Zow and the triplets,  _end of!"_

Vanaj suddenly launched forward and grabbed Kilo's lapels, pulling him close. Kilo shoved him off instantly and stepped back, pulling out his gun and pointing it straight at Vanaj's head.

Jux jumped straight to his feet, disarmed Kilo and grabbed him by the neck. Kilo desperately tried to fight him, but Jux's strong hands and tall stature was enough to make the smaller alien helpless. For moment, there was just silence as Jux chose his words carefully.

"We made a pact, Kilo," Jux reminded him, his voice low and grating. "We'd stick together."

"We also made a pact to kill every human," Kilo choked out.

"You're so pathetic," Jux grated. "This girl can help us get out of this hell and you're throwing away our only chance."

"We need to  _kill her!"_ Kilo rasped. "The Doctor was betraying us, why the hell can't you see that?! You fulaking  _blind?!_ We'll kill him too if we have to!"

"You pathetic little jai'kl," Jux swore, his expression suddenly absolutely terrifying. "I'm not going to kill, not anymore."

"You're fulaking soft now, Jux," Kilo gasped. "I used to respect you!"

Jux suddenly leant closer to him. "I'm  _sick_ of killing being the solution to everything. I'm sick of the blood, I'm sick of the bodies, I'm sick of this life. If you want to kill Rose and the Doctor then you can chiaking well try, but you'll have to get through me first. Because you'd be throwing away the only chance we have to get out of here. The only chance for me to turn myself in, do the time, rebuild my life and find my family. I'm not doing anymore killing. Not one single drop of blood. The only exception to that right now is  _you."_

Kilo choked a little more as Jux tightened his grip. Vanaj stepped forward, coaxing Jux to let go of Kilo. Jux just grunted and obediently let go of him, before moving to stand next to Rose with his arms folded – as if daring Kilo to have a go at killing her.

"Kilo," Vanaj began, his voice low and soft. "You're my friend. I don't want to have to leave you behind. I want you to come with us – but I can only have you with us if I know you're on our side. Think carefully. What d'you say?"

Kilo swallowed, looking between them all. His eyes fixed on G'uj, and suddenly he was pleading. "G'uj, you can see the truth, right? My little buddy!"

"... The Doctor said he could find my parents. He saved my life. I'm sorry," G'uj muttered.

Kilo fell into despair. "Tex! Tex, you're with me aren't ya? We're best friends!"

"Not this time, Kilo," she said quietly, her hand still near her gun with the tech-pad completely abandoned. "Zow, Rekko and the triplets died 'cause of us, not 'cause of the Doctor. They died from us fighting all the time. Jux is right. The killing is over. Let's just get out of here."

Kilo fumed. "Fine! You all wanna walk into a human ambush and get yourself killed then you go ahead! I'm not dying with you!"

And with that, he stormed out of the room and out of the house.

Silence reigned for ten seconds until Vanaj finally raised his voice, but it was broken. "So all in favour of staying here and waiting for the Doctor to contact us?"

Everyone raised their hands.

"Motion carried," he muttered. "I think we need to get some rest. It's been a long day."

Everyone nodded agreement, Vanaj helping Rose to her feet as the others filtered out to find a place to sleep.

"We'll find the Doctor," Rose suddenly said, desperately needing to reassure him. "He'll sort it all out."

Vanaj raised a small smile. "You really trust him, don't you?"

"God yeah, I'd be dead about hundred times already without him."

Vanaj's tiny smile widened. "Yeah, I got that feeling from him. Sorry about Kilo. We've been fighting the humans for centuries – don't know how your Doctor did it but he clearly got through to the rest of us. But Kilo's too stubborn. Always has been."

"It's okay," Rose assured him. "Once you've been threatened by one guy with a gun you've kinda seen 'em all."

Vanaj laughed, a deep, belly kind of laugh. "We'll look after you, don't worry."

"Thank you."

"No problem. Let's get some sleep."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will NOT give in to TenRose! I will NOT give in to TenRose! I WILL NOT GIVE IN TO TENROSE!


	13. Meet the Ancestors

It had been three days since Rose had joined the aliens, and there had been absolutely no word from the Doctor whatsoever. She was trying to be positive – trying to act like it was nothing – but with every hour that passed Rose knew the aliens were becoming less and less trusting of her. And the less they trusted her, the more likely she was going to be either shot or thrown out into that horrible world outside.

She also had no idea where her mother was. For all Rose knew she could be dead. But that wasn't a very positive thought, so she had to really force it out of her mind and try to make herself assume that she was okay.

Rose was the only one who knew for certain that she was telling the truth. The Doctor could contact her. But these aliens might eventually presume from his lack of contact she was lying, and that she was useless to them. Though in all honesty, she was less worried about herself, and more about the Doctor. If he hadn't contacted her, that could mean he was in trouble.

But he was the Doctor. He'd be okay. He was always okay. Right?

So she forged on, staring out of the window praying with all her heart that a little paper aeroplane would come swooping towards her... But it didn't.

There was the sudden sound of static across the room, and Rose turned to see it was Tex – or rather, coming from her tech-pad.

Tex reeled from the screen, her eyes wide. "Whoa, someone's doing a frequency search..." she said quickly, and began tapping the keyboard again.

"Quick, receive it," Vanaj ordered.

Rose scrambled forwards as she realised... "It's probably the Doctor!"

"Hope so," Vanaj replied, glancing at her before looking back at the screen. "Tex, pick it up!"

"Two seconds," she assured him, and finally a voice came on the comms. But it wasn't the Doctor.

_"Hello, this is Captain Jack Harkness, if anyone can hear me please come in..."_

Rose's heart shot straight to her throat. "Jack!" she gasped. "Tex, can you communicate back?"

Tex glanced at Vanaj, who eventually nodded and gestured for Tex to carry on. A few more taps and Tex gave a thumbs-up to Rose.

"Hello, Jack, this is Rose, are you receivin' me?" She spoke clearly and precisely.

 _"Rose!"_ his voice rang back, absolutely delighted. _"Oh, voice of an angel. It's been a while. No time for a catch up... Where are you? Are you with the Doctor?"_

"No... He got... Well, long story, all right? D'you know what's happened here?"

_"Yeah, I've been listening in on comms – sorry, guys. Where are you?"_

"I'm in Coventry with the aliens, they're lookin' after me."

_"I'm near London, I'll come to you."_

"Jack, it's not safe, there are a lot of dangerous people here..."

_"My favourite kind. Where in Coventry are you?"_

"No, Jack. Please find my mum."

_"Your mum?"_

"She got dragged into this, we just got separated. She'll probably be at the human base at Buckingham Palace. Please, Jack, she can't really handle herself."

_"All right. What's her name?"_

"Jackie Tyler. She's blonde and wearin' a pink hoody and jeans. Plus if you say you're a friend of the Doctor she'll probably slap you."

Jack laughed.  _"Okay."_

"Just get her somewhere safe, me and the Doctor are fine for a while, yeah? I'll sort this out. Where's Sarah?"

_"Cardiff. I told her to stick there in my base, she'll be fine."_

"Good... Wait. Base?"

_"Long story. You just focus on the Doctor. I'll find your mum."_

"Thanks, Jack."

_"Good luck. Keep this channel open, okay? Over and out."_

The communicator went dead, and all of the aliens stared at her expectantly. This had been very badly timed. She'd just received a communication from a human and, knowing full well the aliens couldn't understand her, she had had a conversation. For all they knew, she had just told the humans exactly where they were.

Suddenly she had absolutely no idea what to say.

"It was..." she began, slightly nervously as her brain raced desperately to try and think of what to say that wouldn't make them even more suspicious. "It was Jack. He's a friend of me and the Doctor. I... I asked him to find my Mum for me and get her somewhere safe."

There. She'd said it. No lies. She wanted to close her eyes as they were staring at her so intently.

There was the pause to conquer all pauses, before Jux finally spoke up. "Vanaj, I think we should move base," he muttered, still gazing at Rose.

"You could be right," Vanaj agreed quietly, also not moving his gaze.

"Do we just leave her here or shoot her?" Tex wondered quietly.

"I'm not lyin', I swear, I'm not lyin'," Rose said quickly and desperately, hands in the air. "I promise that's the truth..."

Vanaj narrowed his eyes. "I think you'd better give us a  _really_ good explanation."

"Okay, look, I'll tell you everythin' I know," Rose said anxiously. "Everythin' is true, I promise. I'm nothin' to do with the humans. I come from the year 2006 on the real Earth..."

She began to explain in as much detail as possible about her, the Doctor, and how they came to be on this world with her mum, Jack and Sarah. She described finding the dead bodies, crashing the car, the first meeting with Leo when the Doctor had been shot, how the Doctor had communicated with her and how Leo had found the letter.

"I don't care about your war, I just wanna find the Doctor, my mum and my friends, and go home. I haven't seen the Doctor for days, and he's my best friend, and... I... I just miss him and I wanna go home."

All of the aliens had been listening intently to her story, occasionally nodding as it went on. When it had reached the end Vanaj just turned to the others, and had a quiet discussion for a few minutes. When he finally looked up, his expression didn't give any indication as to his thoughts.

"All right, we'll believe you, but if he doesn't contact us within 24 hours..." he trailed off, not finishing that particular sentence. He didn't need to.

* * *

Jackie Tyler was seriously starting to question whether what she was currently doing was even a remotely good idea.

She was asking herself this, because these past few days had been utterly nothing but completely unproductive and miserable. She'd failed to think in advance, that was her problem. She had no idea where she was going, she had brought nothing with her, she had no idea where Rose was, and she also had no idea what she was going to do if one of those weird creatures here jumped out at her. All of this made her terrified.

She was walking through the streets of London in no particular direction, knowing it was a very bad idea but also knowing that going back wasn't exactly an option either. Firstly, because she couldn't stand Leo and secondly because Rose could be in serious danger, and she couldn't exactly just  _abandon_ her... could she?

So she had gone onwards. She was so scared she had actually become completely numb to the fear. She was stuck in this crazy, blood-filled, senseless world with a missing daughter and not much guarantee of a way home.

If she ever found the Doctor again, she was going to  _kill him._

"Hello?" a man's voice suddenly asked from the darkness.

Jackie went into instant panic mode, stopping dead in her walk. "What... Who's there?!"

"Me, it's okay," the voice said, and a tall, muscled, black-haired and rather good looking man stepped out of the shadows. "Are you Rose Tyler's mum, Jackie?" he asked, looking her up and down.

"Yes...?" Jackie replied very defensively.

"I'm Jack, Jack Harkness," he said quickly, putting his arms in the air to show he was holding no weapons.

"And?!"

"Umm... I'm a friend of the Doctor..."

True as Rose's word, within two seconds Jackie had fumed and slapped him right across the face.

"Well you can tell that  _bloody_  friend of yours I'm sick to death of all this, I wanna go home  _right now_ and if he doesn't show 'is face and sort this all out I'm gonna rip 'im a new one!

Jack winced at the thought. "Look, I don't know where the Doctor is, Ms Tyler, but Rose is fine. She..."

Jackie's jaw dropped. "Where is she?"

"Coventry. She's with the aliens..."

"WHAT?!" she shrieked.

"Hold on!" Jack interrupted quickly. "She's fine, she said they're looking after her. She asked me to find you and get you somewhere safe."

"But... But I can't leave her!" Jackie protested.

"I'll take you to Cardiff. Once you're safe I can go and find Rose and the Doctor so we can get the hell out of here. Please come with me."

"How can I trust you?"

"You can't," Jack admitted, shrugging. "But it's true, I promise."

There was a brief moment of silence as Jackie took that in, considering.

"Or, if you'd rather I left you here..." Jack began seriously.

Jackie looked at her surroundings, then at Jack, and very quickly decided which one she would like more.

"All right," she conceded. "But we're not leavin'. We're gonna find my daughter."

* * *

_"Bob the builder! Can we fix it? Bob the builder! Yes, we can! Scoop, Muck and Dizzy, and Roley too! Lofty and Wendy, join the crew!"_

Bob the Builder rose the Doctor from his sleep, but the Time Lord wasn't quite sure how. He opened his eyes slowly and gradually, anticipated several faces staring down at him – but he was, for once, alone.

_"Bob and the gang, have so much fun! Working together, they get the job done! Bob the builder! Can we fix it? Bob the builder..."_

"Yes, we can," the Doctor sang quietly to himself, frowning slightly. He turned his head back and forth, finding Bob the Builder was in fact playing out of a tiny mounted speaker on the wall. A wall of a room that was generally quite generic and uninteresting – some sort of office – so as a result he had absolutely  _no_  idea where he was.

He could tell from his current need to eat and drink that he was in an energy deficit from being in a healing coma. It was only then he realised his headache had considerably receded, and his body was a lot more happy to be moved by him again. The coma had certainly done its job.

How long had he been in the healing coma? He couldn't even tell. His time sense was completely backwards in this world. He couldn't even remember going into it. He could remember being picked up by the giant, but from then to now he couldn't for the life of him recall what had happened to him. Had he passed out and inadvertently slipped into the coma? Or had all his head injuries induced amnesia? Either way, he needed to get a message to Rose – right now.

His leg braces were gone, but his clothes were on the far chair. So once again he had to make the journey on his front across the room, dragging his completely unfeeling legs behind him.

It took a good two minutes before he reached the chair, and dug in the pocket for the TARDIS key. To his absolute relief it was there along with the sonic screwdriver. Next, he had to find some paper, and very conveniently there was a stack of it and a black marker pen on the table near him. He wrote the message, this time in the Universal language of Uniuxian so the aliens would be able to read it – providing they had done what he'd told them to and found Rose, anyway.

It was a little more difficult to make the journey to the window and open it, but it only took around three minutes until the little paper aeroplane was flying across the landscape, swooping and diving until it disappeared off into the distance.

Now to focus on him.

Without his leg braces, he was really quite useless. So he decided to yell instead.

"Hello?" he called. "Hello?"

He waited, listening. Nothing.

With a sigh, he dragged himself back across the carpet to his clothes on the chair, and eventually managed to get dressed before he tried yelling again.

"HELLO?" he tried a little louder. "HELLO!"

The only thing that answered him was a little voice on the speaker, which the Doctor could hardly understand. What language were they speaking in? How was it even possible that it wasn't translating or that he didn't even know what it was?

Then a large bell started ringing, loud and deafening over the speaker. He could only assume something had happened and that maybe he should move, but he couldn't – not with his legs. Where were his braces?!

Before he could begin to think of any form of solution for this, the door burst open to reveal a tall, bulky hominid man with long hair and a beard and a slightly shorter hominid woman that was covered in hair. They were both staring at him.

The man yelled something at him in that strange language and made a gesture, probably something about running, the Doctor could at least assume.

"I can't," the Doctor tried to explain, gesturing at his legs and shaking his head. "I can't walk."

The man gruffed in that language again.

"I can't move them," the Doctor desperately tried to explain, poking them with his finger and shrugging.

Finally the man seemed to slightly understand what he was saying, and moved forward to pick him up to. Slinging the Time Lord over his shoulder with ease, he then he began to run.

The Doctor got an upside-down, jarring view of his surroundings as the corridors flashed by, until he finally processed enough to realise he was in a radio station of some kind. That made sense. A lot of sense.

Within minutes the corridors were gone and they were out into the open – but not for long. They went underground into a tunnel and eventually into a system of caves, where the Doctor was finally placed gently on the ground and he found himself in the centre of a menagerie of hominids of variating height and body hair amount.

They were trying to talk to him again. He still couldn't understand them, so instead of trying to tell these people that he didn't understand them in a language they wouldn't understand, he instead just listened. He tried to make out the words to see if he could learn it a little bit. It was only then he realised that it was actually English, but a forced combination of Old English, Modern English and Uniuxian. The words were mispronounced and out of place in a complete mish-mash of a language, but with a little thought he managed to pull a few key words out of their speech in the context, and then a few more.

"Can you understand me?" he tried in what he thought could be understandable in their language. They all suddenly stopped talking and stared at him.

"Aye, fréawine. But we not know way fréawine talks," the one who had carried him said slowly, puzzled.

Even though the Doctor was trying to translate it the order of words were formed in a very strange way and it was really throwing him off the scent of fluency. "Keep talking. I'm trying to learn it."

"Talk of what?" the hominid wondered.

"What's your name? Where am I? What happened?"

"I have name of Aelfric. We watch fréawine; watch fréawine for days. We send giant friend when fréawine in trouble to save fréawine. Here, fréawine safe from evil outsiders."

"The giants are your friends, Aelfric?"

"Aye, fréawine."

"But why did we run?"

"We monitor metals. We detect evil outsiders. We run to cave, while giant friends scare off."

"What species are you all, then?"

"Species?" the man repeated, confused.

"... You don't know?"

"Species, what?" he asked again, even more confused.

The Doctor frowned a little. "So... You were born here?"

"Aye, fréawine."

"Wait a second..." the Doctor muttered, raising his sonic from out of his pocket and raising it to Aelfric. Aelfric flinched, staring at the sonic screwdriver with wide eyes.

The Doctor caught his expression and offered a reassuring smile. "It's not a weapon. I just need to find out what you are."

After a moment the sonic beeped like Morse code, three dashes, a dot, and a dash. The Time Lord's jaw dropped instantly to the ground in complete shock.

"What?" Aelfric asked.

"You're... You're a Neanderthal," he breathed.

"I what, fréawine?" Aelfric questioned, confused.

"You're... no, sorry, never mind," the Doctor said quickly as he realised Aelfric had probably never even heard the word. How was this possible? Unless... "How long have your family been here?"

"Generations, fréawine. We speak of tales passed from ancients."

"Oh no..." the Doctor muttered, looking a bit more intently at the crowd. Homo erectus, homo habilis, even the short unmistakable forms of tiny h _omo floresiensis_  – not to mention more, more that were so mixed race of the known hominids, the hominids that had developed with evolution and the extra bit of alien DNA that had most likely found its way into them from interspecies reproduction. Most of these species didn't even have names.

Suddenly the situation was a  _lot_ more serious than he'd originally thought. The issue with the malfunctioning shifter wasn't a recent thing. It had been malfunctioning for millions, even  _billions_ of years. It had been bringing through all these species since the age of the dinosaurs. They had all been able to survive the periods that should have wiped them out by working together, and from alien intervention. The sauropod dinosaurs had survived through being domesticated and cared for by the Ingensias Colossus giants and through the lack of fighting for food on a deserted world.

And this was only England. What about the rest of the world? What about life on the other continents? This was their world; the world they had evolved in, that their ancestors had been forced into to survive in. This was a world completely in its own right. An Earth 2, with its own population of civilisations.

Absolutely none of these races should exist, and if he used the Switch, he would be killing all of them. An entire planet's population, wiped out in a second.

He couldn't do that. Not again.

The Switch could not be used under  _any_  circumstances.


	14. Almost a Normal Day

It was only about ten minutes until the threat was gone, and the Doctor and his motley crew of hominids emerged out of what turned out to be a pothole made by some sort of impact collapsed down into a sewer system. They headed back into the radio station – BBC GMR. At least the Doctor knew where he was, now.

Somebody found his leg braces for him, which made him incredibly relieved. After pulling them on and standing up under his own steam for the first time that morning he was finally able to feel like he was in some sort of control of the situation, and began to quiz Aelfric.

"So you've been broadcasting from the radio station?" the Doctor wondered.

"Aye, fréawine," Aelfric replied.

"Why?"

"As we grow, world change around us. We notice disc things. We play discs on machine and it make sound," Aelfric said. "Strange sound. Make us happy."

"You mean music," the Doctor clarified. "So the world has been changing around you?"

"Aye. Ancestors write of roads turn grey, of mountains being built in squares, of strange hard boxes with windows."

"Roads, buildings and cars? They just appeared?"

Aelfric affirmed.

"So, how are you friends with the giants?" the Doctor wondered.

"We know for many years. Ancestors speak of the giants," Aelfric told him.

"They protect you, then?"

Aelfric nodded. "The invaders come to kill us. But we hide and giants help."

The Doctor frowned. "You mean the people you took me from?"

Aelfric nodded. "Aye, fréawine."

"Then why save me?"

"Time Lord," Aelfric replied simply. "Ancestors see Time Lords one time before. They tell us to pass on message, in case of other Time Lords come. You must see message."

He held out a piece of paper; old, ripped and distorted with age.

The Doctor didn't take it, his eyes wide in disbelief. "Time Lords came here before?"

"Aye, fréawine," he replied, still holding out the paper. "Take message. The ancients passed message down through generations for Time Lord."

The Doctor's eyes dropped to it, swallowing. It wasn't just a piece of paper; it had suddenly become something a whole lot more significant. Something from his home world, written by the hand of someone from his species… maybe even someone he had known personally.

Someone who was dead.

He swallowed, grabbed the paper, and began to read the Gallifreyan writing.

_To the next Time Lord,_

_My name is Kadegrataherzioh from the House of Arpexia, and with me is Hardinadijaki, from the House of_ _Xianthellipse._

_We came here to perform the million year maintenance on the shifter, and instead found it had been malfunctioning across the whole of Sol 3's time of existence. Not only has it been taking the life forms we had intended it to, we also found it had been taking the innocents. We have discovered this new world, a Sol 3.2 filled not only with war and hatred, but also with the life and beauty of hominids that shouldn't exist. They have their own world here, and we quickly realised - as you probably have too - the Switch cannot be reset without wiping them from existence. Yet it is the only way to fix the shifter._

_We cannot do that. We cannot use the Switch and know we would be killing these hominids. We are not worthy of our Time Lord titles and thus we deserve a final death to save us from the shame of our lack of integrity, a fault which now causes the biggest paradox ever to occur in this galaxy._

_We will go west and into the sea, never to return to Gallifrey. But we write this note so we can warn you, reader. We could not bring ourselves to do it. We have failed as Time Lords. The Switch must be reset._

_Kadegrataherzioh, Hardinadijaki_

The Doctor looked up, his eyes shining. Aelfric gazed at him, tilting his hairy head.

"Time Lord okay?" he asked, concerned.

"… Yeah," the Doctor croaked, eyes dropping to the note again. Then he suddenly and quite abruptly scrunched it up and threw it straight in the bin, before jumping to his feet and gazing at Aelfric. "Aelfric, can I please DJ your radio for a few minutes?"

* * *

"Hopefully everyone has found each other. I've just woken up from a healing coma, I've got no idea where I am or who's here. I just need to get my bearings and I'll try and figure out what to do next. Don't come after me; keep going to the Lake District. I'll meet you there. From the Doctor. PS: Vanaj, look after my friends. They're nothing to do with the humans."

Vanaj finished reading the paper aeroplane message out loud, looking up at his gathered comrades. Finally his gaze rested on Rose.

"Who's they?" he asked. "As in 'they're nothing to do with the humans'?"

"He might mean my mum," Rose supposed.

"So, this Lake District place?" Jux urged, quickly interrupting any pending conversation on the topic.

Vanaj nodded, and looked at Rose again. "D'you know where it is?"

"Sorta," Rose replied, now nearly 98 percent convinced that they weren't going to kill her. "If we head north towards Carlisle we should see a signpost or somethin'."

"Won't know until we try," Jux grated, and walked straight out of the door with Tex and G'uj in tow.

Vanaj offered Rose an apologetic smile. "Sorry for not believing you for a minute there."

Rose shrugged, smiling. "S'alright, I wouldn't have believed me either."

Vanaj laughed, and moved over to help her walk out of the door.

* * *

Jackie and Jack were in Jack's black SUV and heading straight for Coventry.

Jackie had to admit, after the initial shock of being apprehended by a strange man in a forest, she was now  _really_  beginning to like him. He was good looking, charming, good looking, charismatic, good looking, had a car, good looking, and not to mention he had a gun. Which in Jackie's book right now was a good thing – a very good thing. Plus this car was quite James Bond with all its gadgets and bulletproof glass and whatnot, which was even  _better._

For the first time since they'd all been thrown onto this world, she felt very safe. She wished she knew Rose felt the same way too.

"So there I was, hangin' a bauble on the tree and suddenly 'e turns up, crashin' that ship of his right in the street. He came out, wished me Merry Christmas and collapsed. But his face was different, he'd lost the accent," Jackie explained, munching her way through some sandwiches from Tesco. She'd insisted on leaving change to pay for it.

Jack frowned. "Regeneration? I always thought that was a myth."

Jackie shrugged. "Whatever it was, it freaked Rose right out. Then he just sorta did his alien thing and she went all clingy to 'im again. I've got no idea what she sees in him, to be honest. Every time I see 'im I nearly get killed."

Jack smiled a little to himself. "No idea," he said agreed, and turned onto the M1.

The radio suddenly began to buzz, trying to tune itself to a frequency. Jack frowned, pulling to stop to stare at it.

"That shouldn't be happening…"

The frequency fixed on 95.1FM and the end of Your Mother Should Know by The Beatles faded out.

"What the…?"

_"Hey, you're listening to Out Of Sync FM on 95.1 and 104.6, this is DJ Doctor Fresh spinning your tunes! Later we'll be talking alien life forms – love 'em or hate 'em? We've got Xyclax the Polaxian in the studio to answer your questions! But first, a shout out for Jack Harkness from the Doctor, asking, 'are you there! Please use this frequency!'. We've got the news coming up at one o'clock, but first, Kylie! You're listening to DJ Doctor Fresh on 95.1 and 104.6, Out Of Sync FM!_ _I wanna funk! I wanna f-f-u-f-u-n-k! I wanna funk! I wanna funk! I wanna f-f-u-f-u-n-k!"_

"I don't believe it," Jackie whispered, her eyes wide. "He's got  _time_ to play  _DJ?!"_

Jack was just laughing, bringing out his communicator and adjusting the frequency to 95.1FM.

"Calling DJ Doctor Fresh, come in, this is Captain Jack Harkness! Do you read me, Mr Fresh?"

_"Loud and clear, Captain! That was lucky. Where are you?"_

"Edgware."

_"D'you know where Rose is?"_

"Coventry," Jack replied. "She's with the aliens, she says she's okay."

_"Good."_

"Don't ask about me, then!" Jackie muttered, arms folded indignantly.

_"Oh... Hello, Jackie."_

Jackie snatched the communicator out of Jack's hand. "Don't you 'oh hello Jackie' me!" she screamed right into it. "I'm bloody sick of you! Sort this out  _right now_ or I'm gonna  _kill_  you!"

 _"... Keeping well, then?"_ the Doctor tried.

Jackie looked about ready to burst so Jack pre-emptively took the communicator back. "We're heading to Coventry to find Rose."

 _"No, you aren't,"_ the Doctor replied quickly.  _"Go to the Lake District, Rose is already heading there. Pick me up on the way, I'm at BBC GMR. We just need to all get in one place then I can figure out what to do next."_

"What about Sarah?"

_"She's fine in Cardiff for the moment."_

Jack's brow furrowed slightly. "... You sound worried."

_"It's fine."_

Jack sighed a little, but chose not to pursue it. "Okay. We'll be in Manchester in a few hours. Take care."

_"You too."_

_"When you can't find the music, to get down and boogie, all you can do is… step back in time! Ball of confusion, when nothing is new, and, there's nothing doin', step back in time!"_ the radio buzzed.

* * *

The transmission ended, and Leo leant back with his arms behind his head, beaming from ear-to-ear with a lot of humans staring at him.

"Beautiful. Seriously, that's like... That's like fucking poetry."

"Sir?" one of the people wondered.

Leo's smile widened. "Hold on, no, I just need a moment. A moment to just admire  _how damn good I am._ I'm fucking Jesus Christ, I swear."

There was about thirty seconds of silence as Leo closed his eyes, grinning widely to himself. After that he snapped open his eyes again, and stared at his crowd.

"Well c'mon, ask me what I fucking did, then!"

"… What did you do?" a woman asked quietly.

"Bugged the old woman!" Leo exclaimed, arms in the air. "I can fucking hear everything she's goddamn doing and you know what?  _The Time Lord is at GMR!_ And you know what's even better? _I have people in Liverpool!_ We've got him, we've fucking  _got him!"_

He leant forward to the radio, and switched the channel to the Liverpool HQ. "Hey guys, Leo here… Shut up and fucking listen. Got a mission for you."

* * *

For the three hours whilst the Doctor waited for Jack and Jackie he managed to find a shower and some new clothes to put on. This was getting ridiculous. He'd  _never_ had to shower this much before, and his clothes seemed to get ripped and burned and worn and dirtied before he'd even he put them  _on_  in this world. Not to mention the new-found trials and tribulations of trying to get an outfit that actually  _fitted_ this crazily proportioned new body of his.

It was pretty unfair, he thought. Romana had had complete control over her regenerations, but every time he did it he had no idea what was coming. There was of course no point crying over spilt milk, and Rose did seem to constantly accidentally get her hands in his hair now a lot more often than before… But it would be nice not to have to go back to the same clothes shop to get refitted  _every single time._

But eventually after hours of searching the surrounding houses he found some new clothes that vaguely fitted: some jeans that were slightly too short for his new, stupidly long legs as no one had actually  _had_ his size; a t-shirt under a cashmere black jumper that tried to crush his lungs every time he breathed; and a pair of the only clean shoes around, which happened to be trainers in a ridiculous glow-in-the-dark bright neon orange that looked like the owner had had them as a Christmas present, worn them once to be polite and shoved them to the back of the cupboard pretending they'd lost them.

When he was finally dressed and had borrowed someone's razor to have a shave it was nearing 4 o'clock, and Jack and Jackie would be there soon. So he headed back to the GMR building to bid good bye to Aelfric.

"Thank you so much, Aelfric," he said sincerely to the Neanderthal.

"You not stay?" Aelfric asked, concerned. "We keep you safe, Time Lord."

"Thanks, but no thanks," the Doctor replied, offering an apologetic smile. "I need to sort this mess out. But thank you for everything."

"Okay," Aelfric said, raising a smile. "Wherever you go now, we wish you luck."

"Thank you," the Doctor replied, smiling in return.

"Aelfric," a habilus man said suddenly, peering out of the window. "Invaders in metal box come from distance."

"It's okay," the Doctor said, holding up his hand. "They're my friends."

Aelfric nodded. "Okay," he said again.

The Doctor nodded courteously. "One more thing," he said, and held up a CD. "Could you please play this album on repeat from tomorrow for a few days?"

Aelfric took the CD, confused. "Why?"

"Just need to check you're all right."

"Aye, fréawine," Aelfric replied, looking at the album in his hands. "Good bye, fréawine."

"Good bye," the Doctor replied, and left.

* * *

Jackie saw him first, standing there like a lost lamb outside the entrance to the BBC GMR. Her eyes were instantly drawn to his shoes.

"What the 'ell is he wearin'?" Jackie muttered.

"That's the Doctor?" Jack asked, frowning. "He's… skinny."

"I know," Jackie sighed.

"But strangely attractive."

Jackie looked at him. "Oh, bloody hell. You're not, are you?"

Jack just grinned at that as they pulled up next to him, bringing down the window and sticking his head out.

"We're heading to the Lake District, need a lift?" he joked.

The Time Lord spread a smile. "Yeah, thanks." He paused. "… It's good to see you."

"You too," Jack replied, matching his smile.

"Um, hello!" Jackie said, trying to bring the attention to her.

The Doctor broadened his smile even more. "Hello, Jackie!" he said as happily as he could. "I'll get in, shall I?" he said quickly to avoid a conversation with her, and dived for the back door. Just as he was reaching for the handle he suddenly heard a small 'pft', a high-pitched whistling sound and he turned just in time to find a small dart embed itself in his arm.

Almost instantly the world began to merge and warped, compressing together in a fusion of blur and colours. He very quickly realised he'd been tranquillised.

The others were saying things but the words didn't seem to make sense to him. That didn't matter. He solely concentrated on fumbling for the door handle to get inside the car. But even that was impossible as he approached the task like a drunk trying to get through his front door after a particularly long night of drinking; fumbling and grasping with utterly no sense of co-ordination whatsoever.

Then his arm went dead, quickly followed by the rest of him. He soundlessly collapsed into a puddle of numbness on the concrete.

* * *

"Not again!" Jackie wailed as Jack bolted out of the car, gun already in hand. But he didn't even have the opportunity to dive for the Doctor as a hairy animal with wings and fangs about the size of his SUV bounded up and ploughed straight into him.

Jackie screamed in horror. "Jack! Doctor!" she wailed, desperately wanting to help, or run away, or faint, or possibly all of those things at the same time. But she could only watch, transfixed with horror as another one of the animals ran up to the Doctor and grabbed his leg between his teeth, dragging him back across the grass to a crowd of about a dozen humans waiting in the forest.

"No!" she exclaimed, realising what that meant. Leo would have the Doctor. But there was utterly nothing she could do about that. Jack had finally passed out. The creature grabbed him too and dragged him off into the undergrowth, the gun left abandoned on the floor.

It was over in forty seconds, and Jackie was left alone.

She had to take some deep, measured breaths to try and calm herself down, trying to process the situation in her head. Within minute she'd gone from having probably the best two people to have with her in this situation to having no one at all.

Well, she couldn't just sit here and be hysterical. That was very clear.

She got out of the SUV, picked up the gun and got back in the driver's door. She then put the car into gear, dropped the handbrake and drove off to find Rose and the murderous, human-hating aliens.

It was slightly troubling her that it was almost beginning to seem like a completely normal day.


	15. Knock Three Times

The Doctor woke up in a completely different place to the one he’d gone to sleep in, as per usual. Although, he had to admit, it had been a while since he’d woken up face down in a bathroom; an occurrence which was actually quite refreshing in a situational kind of way, though definitely not in an environmental kind of way. Whoever owned this bathroom seriously needed to invest in a bottle of Toilet Duck.

He raised his head, and caught sight of Jack lying next to the bathroom door, covered in blood.

“Morning!” Jack greeted, thumb in the air.

“Is it?” the Doctor wondered, trying to move over to him. Unfortunately, this led him to quickly realise he was chained to an exposed large metal pipe by one foot – a bloody foot he couldn’t move because his brace had been snapped when the creature had grabbed him.  It was just as well he couldn’t feel it really, because it was covered in blood from the grip of the large, pointy teeth.

He reached inside his pockets for the sonic, but it was gone. So were the rest of his possessions. He groaned in exasperation, turning back over to look at Jack. He was in exactly the same situation.

“Well, I’d _love_ to say this is the first time I’ve been chained up in a bathroom…” Jack jested, and then looked at the Time Lord. “You okay?”

The Doctor nodded. “Got any idea where we are?”

“Nope.”

“Who’s here?”

“Nope.”

“Where Jackie is?”

“Nope.”

“Fantastic,” the Doctor finished off, trying to tug on the chain again. It did nothing.

Jack gazed at their current situation, sitting up against the walls with folded arms. “This reminds me of that film.”

“What film?”

“Saw.”

The Doctor sighed. “Oh, don’t say that.”

“The doctor got out by cutting his foot off,” Jack continued happily.

“Don’t get any ideas,” the Doctor said seriously, checking his leg. The leg itself didn’t seem to be broken, just a bit battered. The brace however had been completely twisted, warped and cracked. He didn’t even know if the sonic would be able to repair it.

“What are those metal things on your legs for?” Jack asked suddenly.

“Mobility. I was shot in the neck, I need them to walk.”

“Shot in the neck?”

The Doctor turned his head so the back of his neck faced Jack. The wound was still pretty fresh.

“How are you not dead?” Jack asked seriously.

“I wonder myself…” the Doctor muttered, and started trying to sort out his leg. To his utter relief, the button that released the metal brace was still partly functional and it released itself – except for a bit that was digging into his leg. He hadn’t noticed that before. He pulled it out, causing more blood to erupt.

Jack found it really quite creepy that the Time Lord didn’t flinch whatsoever at that. He pulled off his over shirt and chucked it at the Doctor’s head.

The Doctor looked at him, confused. “Is this _really_ the time to hit on me?” he wondered.

“It’s for your leg, idiot,” Jack replied, laughing. “Though, I wouldn’t mind if we need a way to kill time. I am _loving_ the new body.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes, pulling off his own jumper.

“Wow, is that a yes?” Jack wondered.

“It’s for my leg, idiot,” the Doctor echoed from before, and wound it and the shirt tightly around his dead leg.

Jack just grinned, waiting for the Doctor to finish.

When the Doctor was done he repositioned his leg with his hands and leant back against the wall, his eyes flickering back up to Jack. “You haven’t asked me, yet,” he said suddenly.

“What… Oh,” Jack quickly realised, looking down at himself. “That.”

“I’m so sorry,” the Doctor said sincerely.

“Hadda be something to do with you,” Jack said with a sigh. “It was Satellite Five, right? That’s when I woke up… the first time.”

The Doctor nodded. “Rose.”

“What? I thought you sent her home?”

“She came back. She absorbed the vortex from the heart of the TARDIS, destroyed the Daleks and brought you back to life. But she couldn’t control it. She went too far, and brought you back forever.”

“She looked into the heart?” Jack repeated, stunned.

The Doctor nodded.

“Is she… I mean, I know I talked to her, but is she okay?”

“I took it out of her and put it back. It killed me.”

“The regeneration,” Jack realised. “Does she know?”

“No. Her memory was erased.”

“Technically you died for her, Doc.”

“It was just collateral,” the Doctor insisted quickly. “I’ve got lots of bodies.”

Jack grinned a very wide grin. “Oh no, you don’t do something like that purely as collateral, not even if you have a thousand bodies to get through. I know.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the Doctor said tersely.

Jack’s grin persisted. “Okay,” he said, and changed the subject. “So you’re _completely_ paralysed?”

“By rights I should be quadriplegic, but Zow completely healed my arms and made these braces. I didn’t even have to think about moving them.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” the Doctor muttered.

“D’you think you’ll get feeling back in your legs?”

The Doctor shrugged. “Not sure. He said eventually I would, but I’m not sure how long that is…”

He trailed off.

Jack gazed at him. “You’re thinking about regeneration, aren’t you?”

The Doctor didn’t answer that.

Jack gazed at him some more, and then changed the subject again. “Who shot you, anyway?”

“Some human…”

The door burst open to reveal a human, standing there with a look of utter glee on his face.

 _“That_ human,” the Doctor muttered.

“Got ya,” the human enthused, limping forwards with his hand outstretched. “Don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Leo.”

“Sorry, just not interested,” the Doctor replied, ignoring the hand and tugging on his chain again. “I’m a little busy so if you could just let me go…”

Leo’s face turned, launching forward to grab the Doctor by his neck. Jack tensed. “I’m sorry, I don’t think you fucking _heard me,”_ he grated. “I’m Leo. Nice to meet you.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat?” the Doctor wondered, utterly unaffected by the hand around his neck. “Sorry, Liam, or whatever your name was, I just don’t have time for this. I would really appreciate it if you…”

Leo fumed, drew out his gun and pointed it straight at the Doctor’s head.

“Get that away from him,” Jack grated suddenly.

Leo looked surprised, turning to the Captain. “Who the fuck are you?” he spat, quite rudely.

“Captain Jack Harkness, pleasure I’m sure,” Jack spat in return, just as malicious. “You need him for the Switch, so what’s the point in threatening him?”

“Who the fuck is this prick and why’s he here?” Leo asked the man in the doorway. The man blanched a little.

“We… We didn’t know which one you wanted, so we took both of them.”

“How fucking stupid are you, you thick shit!” Leo screamed at him. “It’s this one!” He gestured to the Doctor with his gun. “Now get the fuck out of here.”

The man ran off as quickly as he could. Leo glared at the Doctor, then strolled over to the door and slammed it shut.

“We’re gonna wait a night, then you’re taking me to the Switch tomorrow,” he growled.

“I am?” the Doctor wondered, somewhat disinterested.

“If you don’t…” He paused to give the Doctor a hard, malevolent stare. “I’m gonna shoot your friend in the fucking head, right in front of you.”

“Go on,” Jack said instantly, beaming.

This took Leo completely by surprise, whirling around to the Captain in disbelief.

“No,” the Doctor said quickly, getting Jack’s plan instantly.

“Oh no, shoot me, go on,” Jack provoked the foulmouthed human in utter delight.

“No, Jack!” the Doctor said, stronger this time.

“Nah, he’s chicken. He’ll never do it,” Jack continued, blasé.

“What the fuck did you call me?!” Leo yelled, the gun going straight to Jack’s head.

“Chicken, you know, squawk squawk, flap flap?” Jack clarified, still smiling.

“Jack, don’t!” the Doctor practically begged.

“Come oooon,” Jack tempted. “You know as well as I do, Doctor, he ain’t gonna do it.”

“I think he will and this is _not_ a good idea!”

Jack just laughed. “He won’t! Look, he’s not even shot me yet. Usele-“

Leo pulled the trigger. The Doctor couldn’t watch, snapping his eyes shut straight away. For a moment there was only silence, and the smell of the discharged weapon in the air.

“Fucking prick,” Leo swore, turning back to the Doctor. “Really didn’t wanna fucking do that Time Lord, cos you know what? I was being _nice,_ threatening _him_. Because guess what?” he asked, dropping to his haunches to look the Doctor in the eyes from two inches away. “Really, go on, have a fucking _guess._ ”

The Doctor’s mind rushed, and reached one, terrifying conclusion. “… Rose,” he whispered.

Leo broadened the biggest, twisted smile. “Give the man the fucking million pounds, Mr Tarrant!” he yelled in delight, springing up again. “I was just… God, I was so fucking _clever._ Kinda fucking genius, ‘cause _I bugged your old woman._ I was listening all that time to her and you and your friends, so guess what? I found your fucking girlfriend. Just outside of Coventry, actually, thanks for asking. Nice place. Shame it’s covered with dead aliens now – kinda ruins the whole picturesque view, you know?”

The Doctor stared at him in horror. “You killed them.”

“Of course I killed them, idiot. Wiped them the fuck out, took your girlfriend and locked her up. So, really, if you don’t take me to the Switch, I’m gonna shoot her too. And if you value her life as much as his…” He gestured to the very dead Jack behind him. “I know where your old woman is. She’s currently driving cross-country to meet people who just aren’t going to be there. And if even _she’s_ expendable to you…” He paused, and then leant in close again. “Who the fuck’s Sarah and why’s she in Cardiff?”

The Doctor felt incredibly cold. He wanted to rage, he wanted to turn into the Oncoming Storm and tear Leo to pieces… But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do a thing. He was utterly and completely useless.

It was one of those rare times in his life that he could do absolutely _nothing._

“… I’ll take you to the Switch,” he muttered.

Leo grinned. “Excellent choice. Well, sorry to fuck off but I’ve got stuff to sort out, so have a great night’s sleep and all that. I don’t think there are _that_ many rats in here, but I could be wrong, I’ve only been here for a few hours.”

He looked at the Doctor again with that inane grin as the door opened to reveal a man carrying a tray of food.

Leo beamed at the sight. “Oh, and look, dinner’s arrived!” he enthused as the man put the tray down on the floor, and then quickly shrank back in fear from Leo. Leo ignored him, and kicked the plastic bowl of food straight at the wall.

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you gonna eat that?” Leo asked insincerely, and then turned away to Jack’s dead body and the man standing there petrified. “Clean up this shit, would you?” he asked, pointing at Jack. “I can’t fucking stand the stench of stiffs and I don’t think our guest wants it while he’s eating.”

“Yessir,” the man squeaked, grabbing Jack’s leg and dragging him hastily out of the door.

Leo made for the door, but then suddenly stopped as though a thought had just occurred to him.

“Oh,” he began, turning back. “I will give you one bit of good news, because I’m a fucking nice guy. Hey, Rose!” He banged on the wall by the Doctor’s head. “Rose! Your boyfriend’s in here! Wake up!” He gave one final look to the Doctor, smiling with a thumb up. “Enjoy.”

He exited, shut the door, and locked it.

The Doctor moved immediately to the wall, hammering his fist on it. “Rose! Rose!”

“Doctor?”

He sank to the floor in utter relief. “Rose, are you okay? He hasn’t hurt you?”

“No…” came a strained reply. “Doctor… he killed the aliens. Vanaj, Jux, G’uj, Tex… They’re… they’re all dead.”

“I know,” the Doctor said, bowing his head.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t do anything… They ambushed us.”

“I know, and it’s not your fault.”

“What the hell are we gonna do, Doctor?”

The Doctor swallowed. “He knows where your Mum is, he knows where Sarah is…”

“You’re gonna take him to the Switch, aren’t you?”

“… Yeah.”

“But you can’t. He’s crazy, Doctor…”

“I have to, or… or he’s not going to take it well.”

“You’ll think of somethin’,” Rose replied in a voice of complete belief.

He didn’t answer that one.

“Doctor, are you still there?” Rose asked anxiously.

“Yeah.”

“Please don’t stop talkin’.”

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her, glancing at the chain around his foot.

“Where did that giant take you, by the way?”

“Manchester.”

“From Oxford? Doesn’t sound like a first class ride.”

“It wasn’t. I think I passed out halfway there and went into a healing coma.”

“… Yeah. I got worried when you didn’t contact me. The aliens nearly shot me.”

“… Oh. Sorry.”

Rose snorted with laughter. “Is that all you can say?”

“Um… I’m _really_ sorry?”

Rose sighed, but it turned into a laugh halfway through.

“Oh, guess what I found?” the Doctor suddenly asked.

“What?”

“Neanderthals.”

“No way.”

“Yes, way,” the Doctor insisted. “And a few more extinct hominids.”

“What the hell is up with this place?”

“This world is a complete mess and a massive paradox to boot,” the Doctor explained. “Y’see, the people living haven’t built this world… I mean, how could they with Jackie’s flat existing in exactly the same state? No, the world has been changing around them. The world as created by your lot. The environment is being built 7.83492884 seconds _before._ But _these_ people, they’ve been working _independently_ of that time line. Here we’ve got two independent timelines that should _never_ meet now actually running together. It’s one of the biggest paradoxes I’ve ever seen, and certainly the biggest one ever to occur in Sol… err, I mean, your galaxy.”

For a moment there was silence as Rose took that in. “We’ve been apart for too long. I used to be able to understand at least two words you said in a sentence.”

The Doctor laughed, but it ended on quite a minor chord as his face dropped, reflecting on what he’d said for a moment.

“Rose?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“You’ll think of somethin’.”

“I don’t think I can this time… If I use the Switch everyone here will die. If I don’t, Leo will…” He rapidly pushed the words ‘kill everyone’ to the back of his head and grasped for something else instead. “Well, all these people who shouldn’t be here will be trapped forever, and it will keep on taking more innocent people.”

“What about you just stop it taking innocent people and sort out the rest with the TARDIS?”

“It’s too big an operation; this is on a worldwide scale – not just England. Besides, the Switch doesn’t do what everyone here seems to think. It won’t magically put people back in the correct time period; to fix the fact it’s taking innocent people it needs to be reset… which will wipe this entire time period clean. No ifs or buts.”

“Can’t you just hack it?”

“The Switch is _incredibly_ sophisticated technology. It was made by the mechanic Time Lords; I’ve never even seen one up close before. I don’t stand a chance.”

“Well, you gotta try,” she reasoned. “I know it’s easy for me to say that, but if you need my help I’m here, yeah?”

He smiled at that. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, and laughed. “I missed you, by the way.”

“So you should’ve,” he replied, smiling.

“You're supposed to say you missed me too.”

“You missed me too,” the Doctor repeated.

Rose sighed in mock despair. “You're so annoyin'.”

“Yes, yes I am,” the Doctor said, grinning once again.

“Hold on, got an idea,” Rose said, and for a moment the Doctor listened to the silence. Then suddenly the radio came on.

 _“Hey girl, whatcha doing down there? Dancing alone every night while I live right above you…”_ Tony Orlando andDawn sang through a tinny speaker _. “I_ _can hear your music playing, I can feel your body swaying, one floor below me you don't even know me, I love you…”_

 “Oh, my darling! Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me! Mm-hmm, twice on the pipe… if the answer is no…” Rose sang absently.

“Oh, my sweetness…” the Doctor began, knocking the wall three times to the beat. “Means you'll meet me in the hallway, whoa, twice on the pipe… means you ain't gonna show…”

“You know it!” Rose enthused.

“Know it? I _wrote_ it,” the Doctor insisted.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You’re such a liar.”

“Well maybe I didn’t actually _write it_ ,” the Doctor admitted, lying back on the floor. “But I know a guy who knows the wife of the cousin of the guy that wrote it…”

“You’re totally in there,” she replied sarcastically.

The Doctor could only laugh at that.

_“… With the note that's attached to my heart…”_

“Read how many times I saw you…”Rose sang.

“How in my silence I adored you…” the Doctor sang in return. “And only in my dreams did that wall between us come apart...”

They sung it all the way to the end, and then started on the next song, before the next, and the next in some strange form of karaoke. It was very strange to the Doctor how one moment he could be feeling in the utter pits of despair, and then as soon as she appeared, she always knew _exactly_ what to say and do.

But the harsh reality was he was in a whole suitcase full of bad. He had no secret allies, no advantage if Jack revived before the humans chucked him out, which was more than likely, and utterly no idea what he was going to do.

Try as he might, this was not going to end well.


	16. Utterly Fascinating

Rose woke up the next morning to find a rat sniffing at her face. She instantly shrieked, which scared the rat tenfold and it shot off across the room.

“Rose?” the Doctor called through the wall.

Rose didn’t answer for a moment, her eyes following the path of the rat towards an entire pack of them scrambling around in the far corner. She shrieked again.

“Rose!” the Doctor called, a little concerned now. “Are you all right?”

“Rats! A lot of rats!” she yelled back, backing into the corner and folding into the foetal position with wide eyes.

The Doctor didn’t answer that, but she listened hard enough to hear him snort with laughter.

“Shut up!” she chastised.

“Sorry,” he said, but she could tell by his voice he was still smiling.

“Hold on…” Her brow furrowed as she uncurled from her position, crawling a little towards the rats to get a closer look. “Oh, that’s disgustin’.”

“What?”

“They’ve got no fur…”

“They must’ve evolved at a faster pace than your ones, then,” the Doctor reasoned.

“Well, at least they’ve not got bigger,” Rose reasoned to herself aloud, but all the same she backed into the corner again and began to stare at them.

“At least they’re not bipedal,” the Doctor continued, obviously trying to be helpful. It had the completely opposite effect on Rose as she began to stare at them to see if they were walking upright.

“And at least they don’t have opposable thumbs, so they can’t pick things up and charge at you like a battering ram…” he continued.

Rose’s eyes snapped to their paws. “Doctor…”

“And at least they don’t have massive teeth like naked mole rats, which can chew clean through your bone…”

“Doctor.”

“And at least they don’t have the massive numbers or the painful bite that enable Dorylus ants to swarm and kill a human...”

 “Doctor!”

“Ah, Dorylus ants! Fascinating creatures. They’re completely carnivorous. Their bite is very, very painful, though of course, not as painful as the bullet ant or the red harvester ant. The bullet ant has a Schmidt scale of over four. Four’s the maximum, too! But anyway, the _really_ fascinating thing is that with a frail or incapacitated or otherwise vulnerable person they can literally swarm the body. There was this instance where a Bolivian farmer got drunk, collapsed under a tree and passed out. When the police found him he was dead and had ants all over him. I guess a bullet ant would floor you so hard they could _easily_ swarm you, Rose, especially if they all stung you ‘cause you’d just die from the pain anyway…”

 “DOCTOR!”

He finally seemed to pick up on her. “What?”

 “There are ants in here too!” she squeaked, staring at them moving in and out of cracks in the wall and scurrying along the concrete floor.

“What do they look like?”

“I’m not even gonna tell you.”

“No! Tell me! They could be some evolved form of a bullet ant. Imagine that! Utterly fascinating.”

“I’m not listenin’!”

“Oh, it’s fine. Just don’t let ‘em sting you!” he said happily.

“Something’s gonna sting you in a minute,” she growled, and heard a door open. She instinctively looked up to her door, but it wasn’t hers. It was the Doctor’s.

She pressed her ear against the wall, closing her eyes to concentrate.

“I suppose you thought it was fucking hilarious, didn’t you?” she heard Leo spit out maliciously.

“What?” the Doctor asked, confused.

“You’re fucking friend being immortal!”

“… Oh.”

Rose frowned, pressing her ear even more. Who was immortal?

“Oh? Is that it? Really?! He nearly fucking ruined _everything!”_ Leo screamed.

“Where is he?” the Doctor asked anxiously.

“Oh, I’m dealing with him,” Leo grated in such a cold voice it made Rose shiver.

“Please don’t do anything to him. I’m taking you to the Switch…”

“But I’ve got a motherfucker of a problem, Time Lord, a real fucking crisis now. Because I’m fucking angry that you could just let that go and conveniently forget to tell me. I can’t trust you, can I? How do I know that you’re gonna take me to the Switch and not a fucking volcano?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I promise I’m…”

“Oh bla, bla, bla gimme a fucking X Factor sob story. Should I sympathise because your granny’s had all her limbs removed or your puppy’s got fucking diarrhoea, huh? I can’t let this go. I just can’t. I’m gonna haul in the old woman and this Sarah in Cardiff, and then I’m gonna kill your girlfriend.”

Rose’s eyes shot open – a little at the girlfriend reference, but mostly at the fact _he was about to kill her._

“No!” the Doctor said quickly. “No, no, please don’t do that, _please._ I’ll do anything. Please don’t kill her.”

He was begging for her life. Rose waited with baited breath…

“Oh, wow,” Leo suddenly said. “She _is_ your girlfriend, isn’t she? You’re actually in fucking _love._ An alien and a human, it’s like Romeo and Juliet… Actual, literal, star-crossed lovers! … Oh, wait. Romeo died first, didn’t he? You’re right. We can’t upset tradition.”

A gunshot fired, the Doctor yelled, and something hit the floor.

Rose stiffened in utter horror. “No!” she screamed, banging on the wall. “Doctor!”

“Oh, hello,” Leo said, his voice getting louder as he moved closer to the wall. “Don’t worry, he can change his face, crash his ship and wish your mother merry Christmas again. Our departing has delayed, though. Don’t worry, I won’t kill you yet. I won’t send down any breakfast.”

The door slammed shut as Leo left. Rose instantly hammered on the wall, absolutely desperate.

“Doctor! Doctor, talk to me!”

Silence.

“Please, Doctor, please!”

Silence.

“No, not again, not again…” she begged, really trying not to cry. “Please don’t die! Please don’t regenerate!”

Absolutely no sound came back. She tried yanking on her foot chain – that didn’t work. She got so desperate that she began to hammer on the wall again in an attempt to break it down, though it was of course getting her absolutely nowhere. She tried using implements close to her to hit it, she even tried _scratching_ it, but it wasn’t going anywhere.

But she had to keep trying. She wasn’t going to stop. Not for anything in the world.

* * *

 

Her phone told Rose it was 6am. It had been an hour. An hour of calling his name and banging on the wall to be met with utterly no response.

All scenarios had already gone through her head. If he was dead, he’d have regenerated already, right? Maybe he was just unconscious. Maybe it wasn’t that serious. Or maybe… it had been too quick. Maybe he hadn’t had the time to regenerate… Where had Leo shot him? Was it in the head?

 _Please_ don’t be the head.

“Doctor…” she croaked once more. Nothing.

She turned her phone back on to put on the radio. Maybe if she gave him a constant noise.

_“The smile on your face lets me know that you need me… There's a truth in your eyes, saying you'll never leave me… The touch of your hand says you'll catch me, wherever I fall… You say it best, when you say nothing at all…”_

“Oh, shut up,” she grunted, and turned the phone off again to shove it back into her pocket just as a door opened. It wasn’t hers.

“Fucking hell,” Leo’s voice came from the Doctor’s room.

“Leo!!!” Rose yelled, slamming her fist on the wall. “Lemme see him!!!”

“Oh, Rose!” Leo acknowledged. “You don’t need to see him, I’ll describe it. There’s a _lot_ of fucking blood. Seriously, it’s like… where the fuck did the floor go?”

“Let me see him!!!” she screamed, panicking even more.

Leo seemed to ignore her. “Oh, and he’s still alive! Well fuck me. I thought he’d regenerate.”

“Please…” she begged him now, baring her soul. “Please, please let me see him…”

“Oh, sorry, Rose. Gotta take him. We can’t set off like this; he needs to regenerate first. We’ll be right back. Laters!”

“No!!!” she screamed, but it was too late as she heard something sliding along the floor and out of the door.

She couldn’t help it then. She finally burst into tears.

* * *

 

The Doctor woke up to the feeling of ice cold water being thrown in his face. He jerked awake and tried to cough, only to find himself handcuffed and sat in the corner of a plain undecorated room, gagged. His entire abdomen was on fire with pain, his head was filled with fog and he could barely focus – but he could quite clearly see the unmistakable form of Leo kneeling in front of him.

“Good morning!” Leo greeted. “The time is…” – he checked his watch – “half past six. I shot you at five. Why the fuck aren’t you dead yet?”

In far too much pain to care for the consequences the Doctor mentally prepared a massively sarcastic reply in his head, so it was probably better he couldn’t talk.

“My new fucking problem,” Leo began, now pacing up and down in front of the Time Lord. “I can’t take you like this ‘cause you’ll just bleed all over the car, but I can’t shoot you through the fucking head either since that’ll just kill you. But I _need_ you alive, so I need to kill you, but I gotta do it slowly to make you regenerate. I think I got that right?”

The Doctor just followed him with his eyes, making no indication of emotion.

“Well?” Leo demanded, kneeling down and pulling off the gag. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“… I can… can ch-choose,” was all the Doctor replied breathily.

“What?”

“Whether I… w-want t-to regen… generate or n-not.”

Leo’s eyes widened for a moment, before his face suddenly burst into a massive grin. “Ah, but you will, won’t you? Because I’ve still got your slag girlfriend and all your other friends in my sniper sights. So really, if you don’t fucking regenerate, I’m gonna wipe them all the fuck out too.”

The Doctor had nothing to say to that.

Leo just laughed and gagged him again, jumping to his feet. “So, following that trail of thought…” He looked back at the door, and gestured. Two men came over, grabbed the Time Lord and pulled him up. He bit back the cries of pain at the abrupt movement as he was held against the wall, and Leo drew out a cricket bat. He held it up in the air, beaming from ear-to-ear.

“I reckon a slow death might be something like this?”

* * *

 

It had been an hour since Leo had taken the Doctor, and Rose was still crying. When her door opened she couldn’t even bring herself to look at who it was.

“Rose?” a deep American voice asked. That made her look straight up. It was Jack.

“Jack,” she sobbed, still hugging her knees. “Oh god, Jack…”

“Where’s the Doctor?” he asked urgently, using the sonic to free her from the chain on her leg. “He’s not in the room.”

“Leo’s… g-gonna… make h-him re… regener-rate…” she managed in gasps.

Jack’s eyes widened. “Dammit. Right, let’s find him.”

He lifted Rose to her feet with one hand, checking her leg was okay before taking her hand with his left and his gun in his right. They emerged out of the door, and Rose instantly noticed the trail of blood left along the floor.

“I hoped that wasn’t his,” Jack admitted quietly, and began to lead her to follow the trail without another word.

* * *

 

“No, please, stop,” a voice suddenly begged in Uniuxian from across the room, barely after Leo’s exercise had started. The Doctor lifted his heavy head to see a blurry figure sat across the room – quite obviously a prisoner like him.

“Oh, shut up, immortal freak,” Leo spat at him. The Doctor frowned. That hadn’t sounded like Jack…

“Please…”the man begged. The Doctor squinted slightly, and to his complete surprise he realised who it was.

Kilo. Kilo was immortal?

“Shut the fuck up in your dumb language, we’re busy,” Leo swore, drawing out his gun and shooting Kilo another hole in his already bullet-sieved shirt. The alien whimpered, and collapsed sideways.

“Right, where was I?” Leo said, turning back to the stunned Doctor with his bat back in hand. “Ah, yes. Regeneration.”

* * *

 

Jack and Rose followed the trail up some stairs and into a corridor, up some further stairs and to a room at the end of a corridor. From within they could hear something going on, but it was hard to tell what.

Rose made to the door, but Jack quickly held her back and went first. He held up his gun, kicked in the doorway and fired three very distinct shots that cued three yelps. When Rose looked in the room she found Leo and two other humans lying on the floor holding their legs in pain.

“You motherfucker!” Leo screamed, trying for his gun but Jack had already disarmed all three.

“Don’t even think about it,” Jack grated, kicking him in the head to knock him out, and shortly afterward gave the other two the same treatment.

Rose went to the Doctor, pulling him up to sitting position. He was covered in blood and unconscious.

“I think he’s dying, you’ve gotta help him!” a voice suddenly begged from the corner, and both Jack and Rose looked up to see an alien sat there, bound, dishevelled and utterly terrified.

“Kilo!” Rose realised.

“I’m sorry, Rose, I’m sorry,” Kilo sobbed. “This all my fault, I’m sorry…”

“Never mind,” Rose said quickly. “We’ve gotta go.”

Jack threw her the sonic, and she quickly unbound the Doctor before chucking it back to him. She got rid of the Time Lord’s gag and held him tightly for the first time in quite a while whilst Jack freed Kilo.

“You okay to walk?” Jack asked the alien in fluent Uniuxian.

“Yeah,” Kilo breathed, looking at the Doctor with utter guilt. “K’ashi…”

Jack darted over to the Doctor, slipping his gun back into his holster before picking up the Time Lord and slinging him over his shoulder. “We’ve gotta get out.”

He ushered the other two out of the door, and then closed and fused the lock with the sonic. Then without a beat, he turned on his heel and went straight to a window at the side. He laid the Doctor gently on the floor, and then opened it.

“Jack?” Rose asked, confused. “What…”

“They’ll be on us in minutes. There’s no time. I’ll get out and you two lower the Doctor to me, okay?” Jack ordered authoritatively.

“Okay,” Kilo replied quickly, picking up the Doctor as Jack got out of the window and clambered quickly to the ground. Without really agreeing to this, Rose helped Kilo pass the Doctor through the window like a parcel through a letterbox. Kilo climbed half-out the window to pass the Doctor further down to Jack, Rose holding onto Kilo to prevent him from falling. Jack eventually grabbed the Doctor, placing him carefully on the grass whilst the other two got out – Rose with assistance, and Kilo more just jumping right out.

They pelted it across the grass, and thankfully the humans hadn’t clicked yet. Jack led them across the street into another one, through an alley and down another street before finally reaching the SUV. Jackie was waiting inside.

“Oh my god,” she muttered, staring at the Doctor as Kilo and Rose manoeuvred him into the middle seat. Jack slammed on the accelerator and they were off.

“Doctor? Doctor, wake up,” Rose begged.

“There’s a medical kit in the back of Jackie’s seat,” Jack said quickly in Uniuxian. Kilo leant forward and pulled it out, and with Rose they set to work on trying to stop him bleeding. They their best, but his injuries were far too severe for them to deal with in a moving vehicle with not much space. She took hold of him in a tight hug, as if willing her energy to pass to him.

It seemed to work, because he suddenly groaned and his eyes flicker open into slits.

“Where’m I?” he slurred, sounding almost drunk.

Rose cried out in utter relief, unable to stop herself from kissing him. “You’re okay, we’re okay. Jack rescued us.”

He smiled a little, leaning into her hug and closing his eyes.  He was so pale, dark circles around his eyes from the sheer blood loss. He was going to go into shock if they weren’t careful.

“Jack, we need to stop,” she begged.

“We can’t, they’ll be on us like hounds.”

“Jack, please…”

“Jack…” the Doctor suddenly croaked, lifting his head slightly and opening his eyes. “Need… blood…”

“Jack,” Rose reinforced again desperately.

“Ugh, okay,” he conceded. “We’ll stop.”

The Doctor breathed out through gritted teeth, falling back onto Rose again. In her own chest she could feel the vibrations of his double hearts beating to join hers, and it reassured her all the way until the journey’s end.


	17. A Few Home Truths

The Doctor knew that he was awake, but he wasn’t coherent in the slightest. He was vaguely aware of being in a room, then a car, then another room, but the only constant was the fact Rose was with him. If she tried to let go he’d search her out again, making sure he was always in contact with her. In the end she got it, and stuck by him.

It felt like a very long time before his mind began to clear somewhat, and the first thing he really registered was Rose sitting next to him, cleaning his face with something. He forced open his eyes a little more, and she smiled at him.

“Hello,” she said, still cleaning him.

“Where’re we?” he asked quietly.

“Safe, we’re hidin’,” she told him gently. “Until you get a bit better.”

The Doctor took a breath, and for the first time registered a massive pain in his abdomen. He looked slowly down, and realised he was shirtless and absolutely covered in blood. All his. No wonder his brain wasn’t really working.

“I got… got shot,” he realised, finding it a strain to get out words that made any sense when put together.

“Yeah,” Rose muttered, brushing back his hair from his sweaty forehead.

A fleeting thought entered his head, and he clutched onto it. “Why... do I keep... getting _shot?”_ he moaned. “Do... Do I just have that... that kind of face that... that asks to be shot?”

Rose laughed, which surprised him a little because he was entirely serious about it.

“You’ll be okay,” she said gently. “I’m givin’ you my blood.”

It was only then he noticed that he was linked to Rose via a blood transfusion line, and he stared at it for a moment. How selfish of him. She was giving him her blood and he was giving nothing in return.

“But I didn’t get… get you anything,” he garbled out.

She laughed again. “I’ll forgive you,” she said. “Just get me chocolate when we’re outta here, all right?”

He nodded, not quite sure what he was agreeing to but she could always have whatever she wanted. He was getting a little more focused now, and managed to look around the room to see Jack, Jackie and Kilo. Fear instantly gripped him as he realised…

“Jackie, you’ve… you’ve got a bug…” he stammered.

“I got rid of it,” the Captain said gently.

“Sarah…”

“Sorted,” Jack assured him. “She’s in lockdown in my base. They’ll never find her.”

“Okay,” he muttered again, relieved. Then he closed his eyes again to fade away.

Rose gazed at him for a moment, resting a hand on his forehead. “He’s so cold. Have we got anymore blankets?”

Jack fumbled around in the bags from the Torchwood SUV for a moment, and then handed over a blanket. Rose caringly tucked it around him.

“Is it true?” Kilo suddenly asked Rose. “Did… Did that human kill Vanaj and everyone?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “He just… he ambushed us. I couldn’t so anythin’. I’m so sorry.”

Kilo just nodded. “I’m… I’m sorry too. This is all my fault… I didn’t realise. I thought… I thought you guys were with the humans. But you’re not and I…” He looked at the Doctor. “Fulak. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Rose assured him, and then a thought occurred to her. “Are you immortal? Leo shot the Doctor because someone’s immortal and he didn’t tell him. Is that you?”

Kilo nodded, very, very slowly.

“I had no idea,” Rose confessed.

“Neither did I,” Kilo replied dryly.

“What?”

“I went in… Well, I went in to get the Doctor and make him take me to the Switch… I was so mad at you guys for stealing my friends. But the humans caught me and shot me through the head. Then I woke up. Then that human just kept killing me, and I kept waking up. Then he said he was going to make the Doctor pay for not telling him I was immortal because he thought I was there to rescue you... I thought it was all a bluff, but then Leo dragged him in, he was already bleeding and he started trying to… to beat the Doctor to death. I begged him to stop, but he just shot me again…”

Jack was staring at him, frowning. “You didn’t know you were immortal?”

“I wasn’t. I’ve never been immortal…”

“Then something just caused it,” Jack said urgently. “Did something happen to you?”

“No…”

“Think!” Jack demanded, leaning forward.

“Jack,” Rose said sternly, frowning at him. “Stop it.”

Jack got a hold of himself, smiling apologetically at Kilo. “Sorry.”

Kilo just gave a single nod, looking at Jackie, who was once again right out of her depth and just staring at him in a combination of shock, horror and awe.

Jack chose not to say anymore on the subject. “Rose, you’ve given enough blood to him. You’ll faint.”

Rose nodded, and Jack stopped the transfusion.

Kilo stepped forward instantly. “Does he need more?”

“Yeah, the faster we want him up and about,” Jack said.

“Give him mine.”

Jack looked at him, frowning. “I’m not sure if he can have yours. With human blood he can adapt to the type and absorb it… You’re immortal, it’s probably not safe.”

“Use me then,” Jackie said.

Everyone looked at her in complete astonishment.

“Mum?” Rose asked seriously.

“If he needs it, he can have mine, I’ve got some spare,” she explained.

“Sure?” Jack asked.

She nodded, stepping forward to prompt him to set up a fresh line. He did so, and Rose moved down to start work on trying to clean up the rest of him. The moment he realised she was gone the Doctor suddenly moved and flew out his hands to try and grab her again.

“Rose…” he whined.

“I’m here,” she said quickly, taking his hand. “Just cleanin’ you up.”

He sighed with relief, clutching her hand tightly as he looked around again and noticed Jackie giving him her blood.

“Do you want chocolate too?” he asked.

She laughed. “No, sweetheart. This is free.”

“You’re all so nice,” he said, and closed his eyes again.

Rose pulled off his ridiculous bright orange shoes and started trying to tend to his leg. It was then she noticed the strange metal contraption around it for the first time.

“What’s this?” she asked, looking at Jack.

“Mobility brace,” Kilo interrupted, stepping forward. “When that human shot him the first time… Zow said it completely paralysed him. But Zow fixed the nerves for him to use his arms, but he couldn’t fix his legs. He made those so the Doctor can walk. He can’t use his legs at all.”

“He’s paralysed?”

Kilo nodded.

“Will they heal?”

“I don’t know, Zow didn’t really say.”

“The Doctor said maybe in time, but he doesn’t know how long that is,” Jack explained.

Rose looked back at the Doctor. “But…”

“I know,” Jack muttered.

“We’ll look after him no matter what,” Rose said quickly, looking at Jack, then Kilo, and then her mum. “Right?”

“Right,” Jack confirmed, smiling.

“I’ll do anything I can to help,” Kilo affirmed.

Rose looked at Jackie. “Mum.”

Jackie looked at her, and smiled. “Sweetheart, we’ll look after ‘im.”

“No, I meant... You need to leave.”

“What?”

“Jack, can you do somethin’ for me?” Rose asked him, ignoring her mum for the moment.

“What?” Jack asked.

“Take my mum to Cardiff.”

Jack opened his mouth, but Jackie got there first.

“What? No. I ain’t leavin’, not without you.”

“You have to.”

“No, Rose!”

“Mum,” Rose said seriously, leaning forward. “We’re never gonna get away from Leo. He’s got scanners and technology and tons of people ready to kill for him. Right now we’re sittin’ ducks, he’s gonna walk through that door at any minute and you? You don’t mean anythin’ to him.”

“And you do?” Jackie cried, almost angrily.

“He’ll use me to make the Doctor take him to the Switch. He won’t kill me, but he can kill you two. Kilo’s immortal, we’ll be fine.”

“Wait, you’re talking about giving yourselves up,” Jack realised, his eyes wide.

“That’s crazy!” Jackie exclaimed. “What the ‘ell are you bloody _thinkin’,_ Rose?!”

“I’m being realistic, mum!” Rose yelled back, frustrated.

“You’re bein’ stupid!”

“Mum, in case you _haven’t_ noticed, we are stranded on a world that makes _no_ sense, filled with psycho crazy people who have _no_ respect for life. The Doctor’s already been shot, _twice_ , and he’s died once. _So_ many more people have been killed in this _pointless_ fight and me? I’ve had a gun at my head more times in the past three days than I’ve gone to the toilet. Leo’s gonna find us anyway, and he doesn’t need you two and you need to leave, _now._ He wants the Doctor, and I’m the tool Leo will use to make the Doctor do what he wants. So he’s not gonna kill me. And Kilo can’t die anyway. He can protect me if we get into trouble. Right, Kilo?”

Kilo nodded. “You bet.”

“But you can’t!” Jackie yelled, still angry.

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do – I’m not a child anymore, and right now I _think_ I know a _little_ bit more about this than you so for once, Mum, can you just _do what I’m tellin’ you?!”_ Rose screamed in fury.

There was a brief pause where Rose stared hard into her mother’s eyes… and to Rose’s utter astonishment, Jackie began to sob. Rose’s anger quickly dissipated, into shock and guilt.

“Mum, I’m sorry…” Rose said quickly, moving forward to hug her… But Jackie drew away, still crying.

“Look at what he’s done to you, can’t you see, sweetheart?” she sobbed.

Rose frowned. “Mum, I…”

“He’s changed you…” she gasped. “You don’t even care about me anymore!”

“Don’t be stupid, Mum!” Rose was angry again now. “Of course I care about you!”

“If he died what would you do?!” Jackie challenged, staring straight at her.

“I’d come back to Earth, I’d come back to you!”

“Yeah, ‘come back’!” she spat. “’Cause I’m your second choice, aren’t I, Rose?!”

“It’s not like that!”

“Then what’s it like?”

“It’s…” Rose began, but was lost for words. “It’s…”

“Face it, Rose! Ever since _he_ walked into our lives everything’s been ruined! People _die_ when he’s around!”

“That’s not his fault!”

“Isn’t it?!”

“No!”

“Stop,” a voice suddenly came from below. Everyone looked at the Doctor. “Please stop.”

“No!” Jackie yelled, still infuriated.

“Jackie, you’re gonna faint if you give me any more blood. I’m fine now. Stop.”

Jackie forgot her temper instantly, just looking at the Doctor lying there paralysed and wounded. She raised a small smile. “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she whispered. “You’re right.”

“I know, you’ve been giving me blood for quite a few minutes,” the Doctor replied seriously. She laughed as Jack moved forward to stop the line.

The Doctor was stunned at her reaction. “You just _laughed_ ,” he stated in utter disbelief.

She laughed again, getting up once the blood transfusion was stopped. She looked at Rose. “I’m sorry, love. You’re right. You’re always right.” She looked at Jack next. “We’ll go to Cardiff then.”

“No,” Jack replied seriously. “It should be you and Kilo.”

“Jack, you’ll die,” Rose interrupted.

“No, I won’t,” Jack insisted.

“What d’you mean?”

He sighed, gazing up at her with heavy eyes. He glanced at the Doctor, who said nothing, before he looked back at Rose. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

* * *

 

The Lake District was beautiful. _Incredibly_ beautiful.

G’uj had grown up in the warzone; surrounded by bombs, craters, grass and trees in cinders and burnt out buildings collapsing in on themselves, so the complete change to serenity and beauty in this place was something he’d never really thought as being all that possible.

But here it was. The still water of a lake, completely undisturbed, sat in front of a large dark mountain decorated with sparse green trees. It was so calm; so peaceful. A million miles away from the war torn hatred-fuelled world they’d come from.

Vanaj was watching him, almost smiling at the young alien’s astonishment. “You all right?”

“… Yeah,” G’uj croaked, still gazing at it in wonder.

Vanaj laughed, looking back over his shoulder to the following alien. “Jux! Hurry up!”

Despite the prompt, Jux continued to walk at the same pace, taking his full twenty seconds to reach the other two and finally gaze at the same sight they were looking at.

“Hmm,” was all Jux said.

“That all you’ve got?” Vanaj joked, looking back at G’uj. The young alien still hadn’t blinked.

Jux ignored him, just gazing out over the Lake District. “So, what’s the plan?”

“We stay here,” Vanaj said. “Someone’s gotta be headed here soon. If it’s the Doctor or Rose, then we’re sorted. If not… well, we’ll deal with that when we get to it.”

Jux and G’uj both nodded.

“I wish the others were here,” G’uj said sadly, a finger tracing over the side of his head where the humans had shot him.

“I know,” Vanaj muttered, resting a hand on the young aliens shoulder. “But Kichi has given us another chance, bringing us back from the dead. So let’s not waste it this time.”

“Do you think the others would be mad at us?” G’uj suddenly asked.

Vanaj gave him a small smile. “Tex, Zow, the triplets, Rekko… This is what we aimed for. They’d be happy we got here. They’d only wish good things for us, G’uj. Now come on, let’s find something to eat and somewhere to rest and wait.”

* * *

 

The farewells had been relatively short; silent hugs and kisses being exchanged between the group before Jackie and Kilo had left for the safety of Cardiff. Even the Doctor had got a smothering Jackie Tyler hug and kiss plus the obligatory lecture about looking after Rose. Then it was just the Doctor, Rose and Jack.

Rose had found some food and Jack had found the Doctor some new clothes, and as the sky began to darken they were sat in a circle on the floor, whilst the Doctor tried in vain to repair his leg braces as they waited for Leo to find them.

“Do you think you can fix them?” Jack asked the Doctor as the Time Lord fiddled with his sonic and the leg braces.

“I think so,” the Doctor replied, and then decided to change his wording. “… I hope so.”

“Me too,” Jack muttered.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rose began positively. “We can live with it.”

The Doctor looked at her briefly. “Suppose,” was all he said, and then got back to work. “About time Leo showed up, actually. He’s not as good as I thought.”

“You know if we set off now, find a car, we could probably get to the Lake District before Leo catches us,” Jack said.

“There’s not much point,” the Doctor muttered, still buzzing away. “He’ll find us, and if we’re running away it’ll be more dangerous because it’ll make him angrier the further away we get. Best option right now is to let him take us, and make him think he’s bested us. He’ll want to go to the Switch anyway. Ah!”

He drew back from the braces, beaming.

“You fixed them?” Rose asked.

He looked at her, grinning. “Moment of truth!” he announced, shifting himself so his legs were out straight. Rose helped him, and together they fixed on the right leg brace. It abruptly and quite literally kicked into life, but Rose was thankfully out of kicking range. They then did the left, but it didn’t quite give such a kick.

“Help me up,” he said, and together Rose and Jack grabbed an arm each to help him upright, keeping hold of him as he tested each leg.

“Left’s a bit stiff… Not very responsive…”

There suddenly came the sound of cars and cries in the night. Everyone looked up, alert.

“He’s comin’,” Rose muttered, helping Jack sit the Doctor down again on the sofa. He winced, holding his abdomen.

She dropped down next to him, taking him hand. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” he replied.

“I mean, _really_ trust me. Like I trust you.”

The Doctor gazed at her, wondering where this was going. “Rose, I trust you,” he affirmed seriously.

“Okay, ‘cause I’ve got an idea. I think I can reason with Leo, but I need you two to do exactly what I say, all right?”

They both nodded back at her.

“Here’s the plan…”

* * *

 

Rose stepped out of the door first, her arms in the air in surrender to the already waiting humans.

There was Leo, sneering at her. “You think that’s gonna stop me fucking shooting you?”

“No,” Rose confessed. “But we have a problem.”

“What?”

Rose gestured for Jack to join her, who stepped out of the door carrying the limp body of the Doctor.

“Hasn’t he fucking regenerated yet?” Leo asked, utterly astonished. “And you!” he pointed at Jack. “Another fucking immortal! You fucking shot me!”

“Yeah, sorry,” Jack replied with a shrug and an apologetic smile.

“I don’t think you want him to regenerate,” Rose began, sidestepping in front of Jack and the Doctor.

“Of course I do!” Leo spat, getting angry.

“No, you don’t. ‘Cos have you ever seen a Time Lord regenerate? He’ll be useless for weeks.”

“Stop talking and fucking move so I can finish the job,” Leo snarled, raising his gun.

“First he collapses into a coma,” Rose continued, unabashed. “Then his brain starts comin’ out of his nose. Then his skin melts and all his organs disintegrate. That takes a week. Then everythin’ starts rebuildin’ inside out, slowly. After he’s rebuilt he sleeps for three more days, and when he wakes up it takes him even longer to remember how to talk and walk. The whole thing takes about a month.”

“Stop fucking bullshitting.”

“How can I make that up?” Rose countered. “I’ve seen him regenerate once before. It was horrible. And if you want him for the Switch then you’re gonna have to wait a month.”

“I think you’re talking bollocks. He’s not even unconscious, is he?” he limped forwards, grabbing Rose by her hair and pressing his gun to her head. Jack tensed, widening his eyes.

Leo noticed this, and smiled. “Hey, Time Lord, I’m pointing a gun right at your girlfriend’s head. If you don’t want me to shoot her then open your eyes.”

“But he can’t!” Rose protested.

“Yes, he can,” Leo growled, pulling on her hair.

“He can’t!” Jack insisted.

“Oh, I’m fucking shooting her,” Leo murmured, but instead of doing that, pointed the gun towards the grass. While keeping his eyes firmly on the Doctor, he pulled the trigger.

Everybody watched, as the Time Lord didn’t so much as flinch.

“Well fuck me,” Leo breathed. “He really _is_ out.”

“See?” Rose said quickly. “He needs medical help right now if you wanna go to the Switch.”

“Who says I believe your bullshit story about regeneration anyway?” Leo snapped.

“When he wakes up you can ask him yourself,” Rose said. “Right now we need to help him.”

Leo glared hard at Rose for a moment. Then he looked at the Doctor.

“All right. Say I believe your shit,” Leo said, and looked at Jack. “Bring him.”


	18. End of the World

The Doctor had gone into a state of low-level hibernation in order to deceive Leo, with the signal to wake up being a squeeze of his hand. He was perfectly happy, floating around in the nothingness without a care in the world until he felt his hand being squeezed. It was almost disappointing to have to go back to reality, but mentally kicked himself regardless and slowly,  _very_ slowly, opened his eyes to the world outside.

He registered Rose first, cupping his cheek and smiling reassuringly down at him. Next he saw Jack on his other side, looking the other way. He himself was lying down with a metal ceiling above his head – the shape and texture of it denoted it was a modified van of some kind with windows.

Suddenly, fierce pain shot through his stomach and he couldn't help the cry that tore from his throat as a consequence, making everyone jump about a foot in the air.

"Oh god, I'm sorry," a new voice said quickly, nervously. Still partially in a daze, he lifted his head slightly to see a petite brunette woman, hands near his gunshot wound.

"S'fine," he murmured, blinking to try and get some focus.

"This is Heather," Rose told him gently. "She's one of Leo's doctor's, she's helpin' you."

"Well actually, I'm a radiographer," Heather confessed, blushing slightly.

"Close enough," Jack enthused, winking at her. Heather's light blush quickly turned into full-faced redness.

"He's awake?!" a sudden yell came from outside the van, and suddenly there was Leo struggling to drag a bullet-sieved leg behind him into the van, glaring at Heather when she tried to help him. "Fuck off."

She fled instantly, and Leo quickly turned his attention back to Rose, Jack and the Doctor; his expression hardening as he raised his gun. He limped over to the Doctor, shoved away Rose and hit the Time Lord's temple with his gun.

"Oi, wake up, prick," he demanded. The Doctor was still in a lull, so instead Leo pressed the tip of his gun right against his bullet wound and pushed it right down. The Doctor screamed and folded in on himself, instantly cuing a response from Jack and Rose to move closer to protect him. Leo ignored this and grabbed the Doctor's neck in one hand, the other pointing his gun directly at Rose's head.

"How do you regenerate?" he spat in the Doctor's face.

The Doctor groaned, still panting to desperately try and get the pain in his stomach to a manageable level. But it was quickly clear Leo wasn't willing to wait for this and he tightened his grip ever so slightly around the Doctor's throat.

"I'll ask again," he said slowly, gratingly. "If I fucking shot you right now, how would you regenerate?"

"I… Everything… Everything just… goes," he whispered, staring up at Leo through sunken eyes. "My… my brain falls out… through the nasal passage… my skin melts… my organs… organs dissolve… then new cells… start to grow and… and everything grows back… For… Forget who I am… Forget how to walk..."

"How long does it take?!"

"Four… Four weeks."

"Oh yeah? What does this all feel like, then?!"

The Doctor looked Leo straight in the eyes, the Time Lord's own engrained with pain and utter misery, lingering for a moment until he finally whispered his reply, every syllable with absolute conviction...

"… Like white-hot fire in every single cell of my body."

Leo sighed, apparently annoyed. "Fuck," he cursed, letting go of the Time Lord. "Right."

And without a single word to follow that, he got up, limped to the van door, clambered out and slammed it behind him to the sound of a clicking lock. Seconds later an engine started and all three were nearly sent flying as the van they were in accelerated off like a commencing race.

"You okay?" Jack asked the Doctor, concerned.

He nodded, offering a half smile as he became more aware, Rose helping him to sit up.

After a moment he realised she was staring at him, and he frowned back, scratching his head. "What?"

"… Were you telling the truth?" she asked gently.

"About what?"

"The regeneration."

"Hope not," the Doctor replied, pulling a face. "That sounds like a regeneration I'd pass on."

She smiled a little. "I… I meant the bit at the end."

He gazed at her, suddenly sad. "… I didn't need to lie."

She instinctively hugged him with care, and he appreciated it as Jack patched up the last of what Heather hadn't had time for.

"Have you still got your phone?" the Doctor suddenly asked, looking at Rose.

She nodded, bringing it out of her pocket and handing it to him. He pulled it up and checked the signal bar. It was at nothing.

"No signal," he muttered, straining to reach into his pocket to bring out the sonic.

"I thought there's no signal here?" Rose wondered.

"We're getting closer to the Switch. The Switch is cross-dimensional and highly tuned to transmitters, and the chip I put in has an affinity with the technology, so if I can just shift the reception…" He buzzed the phone with the sonic for a moment, and then waited. Jack and Rose watched intently in anticipation… until one tiny bar came up.

"Bloody hell," Rose breathed, astounded.

"You can say it," the Doctor said with a grin, going to the contact list.

"You're a genius," she replied almost automatically, laughing out loud.

He beamed. "Yes, yes I am," he replied, and pressed the call button, holding it to his ear. "Calling Sarah."

"But she doesn't have any signal…" Jack began, but quickly realised the futility of his statement when Sarah had apparently answered.

"Sarah!" the Doctor enthused. "It's me, the Doctor. Are you okay? … I'm with Rose and Jack, we're fine. Listen, Rose's Mum, Jackie and an alien called Kilo should be with you by now, they… Oh… Did you check the… Oh… No, it's okay… Don't worry, I'm sorting it… You just stay in there safe, okay? … Take care, I'll see you soon… Bye."

He hung up, and looked at Rose.

"Where's my Mum?" she asked seriously.

The Doctor handed back her phone to her. "You might want to call her."

Rose did so instantly, slightly panicked.

_"Rose? How did you…"_

"Mum! Where are you?"

_"Cardiff, sweetheart."_

"No, you're not!" Rose yelled anxiously. "The Doctor just called Sarah!"

_"… Oh."_

"Mum, seriously, where are you?"

_"Umm… nearly at the Lake District, love."_

"Mum!" Rose shrieked, her eyes shooting open wide. "Go to Cardiff!"

_"No."_

"Why not?!"

_"Because you need me, sweetheart."_

"Oh for god's sake," Rose muttered, hand on hand. "Look, just… Put Kilo on."

 _"Okay,"_ Jackie replied, and there was a scuffle as the phone changed hands.

 _"Hello?"_ Kilo asked.

"Kilo! What happened to the Cardiff plan?!" Rose practically screamed down the phone.

_"We… We decided not to."_

"What?"

_"We had a talk, we wanna help you."_

"But you can't go…" Rose suddenly stopped dead, staring at the Doctor in horror. "Wait, you and my Mum  _talked?"_

_"Yeah."_

"You can understand her? She understands you?"

_"Yeah."_

The Doctor took the phone off of her instantly. "Kilo? When did this happen?"

_"Oh, hey, Doctor. I dunno, it just started."_

"How?" the Doctor urged. "You mean instantly or progressively?"

_"Umm… Progressively I guess…"_

"Doctor," Rose suddenly said.

He looked up instantly to see her standing precariously upright, looking out of the windows. Jack helped him upright and guided him over, keeping the Time Lord steady as all three looked out of the window at the sight in front of them.

The sky was completely blood red, with neither a cloud nor the sun in sight.

"Red sky at night, shepherd's delight?" Jack wondered hopefully.

"It's 4pm," Rose muttered.

"Kilo," the Doctor said quietly down the phone, seriously. "Go to Cardiff."

_"But…"_

"I'm  _serious,_ Kilo. Have you  _seen_  the sky?"

_"What about it?"_

"It's red!"

_"Is it?"_

"Look up!"

_"It's blue."_

"What?"

_"Really, it's…"_

The phone suddenly went dead. The Doctor checked the signal bar and it had nothing again.

"Doctor!" Rose urged, and he checked out of the window again. It was a spontaneous storm. When seconds ago it had been a clear sunny day, it was now thunder, lightning and torrential rain pouring from a completely blood red sky.

"What hell is going on?!" Jack wanted to know, uncharacteristically panicking which alarmed the other two. But before the Doctor could answer him there was a massive creaking sound and breaking of wood from somewhere outside, and the next thing they knew they were flying headlong towards the front of the van in a rain of debris and the sound of crushing metal as the van stopped completely dead. All three flew straight into the opaque metal dividing them and the driver.

Dazed for a moment, the Doctor got onto all fours, looking immediately for his two companions. Rose was struggling to sit up with a hand on her head, and Jack was…

"Oh God," Rose whispered as her eyes connected with the sight of Jack, mostly crushed beneath a giant oak tree that had fallen straight through the roof and right onto him and the driver. He looked dead; his head and shoulder poking out from underneath a combination of torn metal and smoking wood.

"Jack!" Rose wailed, stumbling to him immediately, trying to get him free but to utterly no avail. The Doctor tried too, but it became very apparent his wounds didn't like that and he yelped in pain.

Instantaneously a blinding flash of light seemed to come through the destroyed windscreen, as lightning struck the ground right in front of the destroyed van. Rose shrieked in alarm.

"It wants me!" the Doctor realised. "We've got to get to the Switch!"

He resumed trying to get Jack free, but Jack's hand suddenly launched up and grabbed the Time Lord's arm. The Doctor looked down to his friend, the ex-Time Agent's mouth red.

"Go…" Jack choked, coughing and spluttering through the blood. "Get to the Switch."

"But…"

"Go!" he forced out with all the strength he could muster. "I'll catch you up!"

And then his eyes closed, his head lulled, and he quietly died.

"Oh God," Rose whispered again, reaching to Jack's face. "Jack…"

"Rose, come on!" the Doctor demanded, grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet.

"We can't just  _leave_  him!" Rose screamed angrily.

"We've  _got_ to!" the Doctor screamed back, sonicking open the back doors of the van. He all but fell out, collapsing down onto the concrete holding his stomach with his face contorted in utter agony.

Another blinding flash, and this time it was barely three metres away from him. Rose screamed a very loud scream in response, and it prompted him to get to his feet, fighting the agony.

"Rose!" he yelled urgently over the pouring rain and constant thunder. "Get over here!"

"I can't see!" Rose screamed back, hands on her eyes. The strike had blinded her.

He launched forward to take her hand, pulling her away from the van. He put a tight arm around her, pulling her against his chest protectively as he raised his other hand to the sky, and closed his eyes to brace himself for the impact.

What he didn't register was Leo, only just about managing to touch the Doctor's back with the tips of his fingers before lightning hit the Doctor's hand, and all three were swallowed up in a ball of energy and completely disappeared.

* * *

When the Doctor opened his eyes, he very quickly realised he was in the Lake District. A little to his relief, as he'd hoped the lightning had been a transmat. Quite lucky, really.

The sky above was still blue, but he could quite clearly see a line of red on the horizon. Time was running out.

He found Rose lying next to him, the transmat having knocked her out. He scrambled to her, placing his fingers on her temples to give her a mental kick to consciousness. Her eyes immediately snapped open, and then closed again.

"Who's there?!" she asked anxiously.

"It's me, the Doctor, it's okay," he assured her quickly. "Still blinded?"

"Yeah… God, Doctor, help me," she whined.

The words 'help me' coming from her drove knives straight into his hearts, and he quickly brought out the sonic screwdriver, pulling up her eyelids to examine her eyes.

"It's okay, just a bit of basic retina damage from the light, even the sonic can repair this," he assured her. "Stay still. I need to poke your eye a bit."

He adjusted the settings on the sonic, and pressed the tip ever so carefully against her eyeball, before flashing it with a quick burst of light. He did the same on her other eye, and pulled back. She opened her eyes slowly, blinking rapidly until she was lying there staring at him.

"It worked!" she enthused, hugging him tightly. "Thank you!"

"Ow…" he muttered feebly.

"Oh, sorry!" she said quickly, letting go and grinning at him, before her eyes suddenly averted upwards. "The sky's blue," she realised.

"Not for long," the Doctor muttered, pointing off across the horizon. "Look."

She did, and saw the thin line of red that seemed to be progressively getting taller and wider…

"Doctor…" she began, frowning. "I've gotta ask…"

"It's the shifter," he said, anticipating her question. "I don't know why, but it's breaking, or powering down. And that's activated an emergency setting… The lightning, it was a transmat, and it's focused in on a Time Lord to take him to the Switch so he can do the maintenance and get out before the reality disappears."

"It's the end of the world," she muttered.

He nodded.

"We need to get to the Switch," she realised.

He nodded again. "Keep holding onto me, please. I don't want you to be stranded. C'mon," he said, helping her to her feet… when suddenly a gun was thrust straight in his face.

The Doctor didn't even need to look up, just sighing. "Afternoon, Leo," he acknowledged.

"I don't know what the  _fuck's_ going on but you are gonna take me to the  _goddamn_ Switch  _right_ now!" Leo screamed, absolutely  _beyond_ furious.

The Doctor ignored him, checking Rose. "How's your leg?"

"Fucking  _move!"_ Leo yelled, thrusting the gun again.

The Doctor stared at him for a moment, grinding his teeth slightly. He wasn't sure how much more of this short arrogant human he could take.

"I'm checking Rose is all right, and  _then_  we'll go to the Switch," he grated, and turned back to Rose.

"We're fucking leaving  _now_ or I'm gonna fucking  _shoot her!"_

"Oh, come on!" the Doctor cried, thoroughly annoyed. "What good would that do? If you want to go to the Switch, drop the gun and  _then_ you can follow us."

"Fat fucking chance!" he grabbed Rose's hair and dragged her towards him, his gun resuming its usual position against her head.

The Doctor's eyebrows lowered and his body tensed. He was obviously about to flip.

Rose quickly held up a hand. "Doctor, it's okay, we'll just go to the Switch, yeah? We need to move."

He gazed at them for a moment longer, before he reached out to take Rose's hand and pull her away from Leo. "Okay," he said, and glanced at the horizon again. The red line was getting thicker, very quickly. "Allons-y."


	19. Saral'ei Liala

One thing the Doctor had neglected to mention was that they had to climb to the peak of the Lake District on Scafell Pike to reach the Switch, and the transmat had only placed them three quarters of the way up. This wouldn't have been a problem, except with all their injuries, Leo included, it quickly became a test of pure endurance.

They walked on and on, the Doctor and Rose trying to support each other with Leo limping and wincing behind, but forever maintaining the grip on his gun at their heads. He refused to put it down. Not that the Doctor and Rose were paying any attention to that whatsoever.

It turned out to be the Doctor who had to stop first, letting go of Rose to ease himself to the ground, hand on his abdomen as he groaned through gritted teeth. Rose dropped down next him, hugging him tightly.

"Fuck… Fucking move…" Leo practically gasped, clearly exhausted but determined to keep going.

"Wait a… Wait a minute," Rose told him through her own breaths for air, still holding the Doctor as he panted in her arms. She looked up at the sky – the red was nearly on them. "Doctor…"

He followed her gaze, looking up at the sky. "Not long left," he grunted, struggling to his feet again with a wince.

"Okay?" Rose asked, concerned. He was very pale.

He nodded, but Rose kept her arms around him to support him as they began to move again, shoes covered in mud, blisters on their feet.

It was only three further minutes until they reached the peak, though it felt like hours. When they finally got there the Doctor stumbled again, and Rose quickly grabbed him before he could fall onto the rocks.

"Where… Where's the d-damn S _witch?!"_ Leo yelled, looking around.

"Need to… Need to open…" the Doctor gasped.

"Hurry the  _fuck…_ up!"

"Just calm… calm down, yeah?" Rose shouted in retort, holding the Doctor up as best she could. "Remember, you… you  _shot_ him!"

 _"MOVE!"_ Leo screamed, and kicked the Time Lord in the side. The Doctor yelled in pain and nearly slipped out of Rose's grip, gasping and crying out in pain. Rose quickly saw why – the wound had reopened, and his shirt was beginning to turn red.

"What the hell… are you… you doin'?!" Rose cried, readjusting her grip on him to prevent him falling sidewards and potentially cracking his head open on a rock.

"FUCKING GO!" Leo screamed again, grabbing the Doctor's arm and wrenching him sideways, Rose only just about managing to keep him safe.

"Stop it!" Rose cried.

"Drop him!" a voice yelled from behind them, and suddenly Rose realised why Leo was so eager to go. That was Kilo's voice. She looked up, and instead of just seeing him and her mum as she expected, she found her mum, gasping for breath, Kilo, Vanaj, Jux and G'uj…

"What?!" she gasped.

Leo instantly grabbed her and pressed the gun to her head. Jackie squealed in alarm, and the aliens responded by drawing out their own guns to point at him – three against one.

"Let them go, Leo, or we'll kill you," Vanaj said, slowly and carefully, extremely pale.

"Shoot me and… and I'll take the… the bitch with me!" Leo responded, pressing the gun harder to her head.

Suddenly in the whirl of confusion Rose felt a hand on her ankle. She looked down, and it was the Doctor, sprawled out and staring at her.

 _'Get down,'_ he mouthed, and Rose took the hint. She launched up a heel to stamp right down on Leo's foot and he cried out, letting go instantly.

"Saral'ei!" the Doctor yelled from somewhere behind her just as she dropped to the ground and instinctively prepared herself for an explosion of some kind – and that was exactly what she got. Something blasted out with a loud rip and blew Leo and the others off of their feet completely, rocks flying everywhere.

"Rose!" the Doctor called, and she looked up to find him standing precariously on the rocks with his hand outstretched. She scrambled to her feet and grabbed it, and he guided her to the stone post and rested his hand on it.

"Koshka tara kihca'u'time, ei'oh'ber'u vivi," he said, and suddenly a box about the size of the TARDIS with a door materialised in front of them. Without a word of explanation he opened the door and went inside, Rose still clinging to his hand.

They emerged into a large metal room; bigger on the inside of course. There was a massive empty space with several corridors leading off.

The Doctor turned back and buzzed the door with his sonic. "Won't keep Leo out for long but we need some time," he explained, shoving the sonic back into his pocket and letting go of her hand to bring out his medical kit.

A few painkillers later between them, and they were recovered enough to carry on the journey.

The Doctor moved off into an adjoining corridor. "C'mon!"

For a moment Rose just stood there, looking around the room with interest. She moved forward to the centre of the room, peering off down several corridors. This place seemed to go on forever.

"Rose," the Doctor suddenly said from behind her.

"I know, sorry," she said, turning back to him… but he was just standing there, staring at her unblinking.

"What?" she asked, confused.

"Rose… Help me."

"What?"

"You need to follow me…"

"What? What is it?" she asked anxiously.

"There's this thing… Rose, it's going to kill me."

"What?!"

Another Doctor suddenly ducked out from behind a wall. "What's up?"

Rose blinked in utter astonishment, looking between the two Doctors. "There's… there's two of you…" she whispered, pointing.

"What? Oh!" the Doctor realised, looking in the vague direction of the other Doctor. "It's just a defence mechanism. If you're not a Gallifreyan it kind of searches your brain for someone you care about and uses their image to tell you to stay away, so you can't accidentally damage the shifter," he explained, moving forward and passing his hand right through the hologram. "See? I can't see anything."

"Rose…" the hologram begged. "Rose, you need to help me… Please, come with me…"

"He's not tellin' me to stay away, Doctor," Rose replied seriously.

The Doctor frowned. "Really? What's he saying?"

"He wants me to follow him."

The Doctor's frown deepened. "… That's not right."

"It's this way…" the hologram said, pointing.

"He's wants me to go somewhere," Rose said. "Should we follow him?"

The Doctor nodded, and Rose led the way to follow the hologram Doctor down one of the corridors, walking for a good five minutes or so until they reached a large metal door carved with a large round symbol.

"Symbol of Rassilon," the Doctor acknowledged, tracing the carving with his finger. "Now we know we're in Time Lord territory."

"You need to say these words, Rose," the hologram suddenly said. "Nyoi bionala'ce Time Lordha."

"He wants me to say something," Rose told the Doctor.

"Repeat it, it's probably the password," the Doctor encouraged.

Rose frowned. "Umm… Noy bina…"

"Nyoi'bionala'ce Time Lordha," the hologram repeated patiently.

"Nyoi… binolo… si…"

"Nyoi'bionala'ce Time Lordha."

He kept repeating it and she kept repeating it after him, whilst the Doctor just stood by looking slightly amused at her strained efforts to try and speak his tongue. After about four minutes of repeating and learning Rose straightened up, looked decisive, and boomed the words with total conviction at the door… "Nyoi'bionala'ce Time Lordha!"

The door slid open, and the Doctor burst out laughing.

"Why are you laughing?" Rose asked seriously.

"Your accent," he confessed, sniggering. "It's like an episode of 'Allo 'Allo."

"Hey, come on, I'm trying!" Rose insisted. "You've never taught me any Gallifreyan!" She stopped, and frowned at that. "That  _was_  Gallifreyan, right?"

He nodded, still laughing as he moved off through the door.

"What did I say?" she asked, trotting to catch up with him.

"You said 'open for a Time Lord'. Well, actually, with the accent you said, 'remember to open for five purple Grandmas' but I think it got the message."

She rolled her eyes. "What did you say earlier? You know, for the explosion?"

"Saral'ei, it means help me. I figured some safety was built in in case a human follows you to the shifter."

"Saral'ei," Rose repeated.

"What about my uncle?" the Doctor joked, laughing.

"Oi," she said, elbowing him. "How would I say my name is Rose?"

"Ei'af Liala."

"Rose is Liala?"

"Yep, Gallifreyan for Rose."

"Why's that?"

"Rose isn't really pronounceable in Gallifreyan," he explained. "I made up Liala when I met you."

"… You made it up?"

"Yeah."

"You carry on makin' up Gallifreyan?"

He nodded. "Of course I do. It's my native tongue, I don't want to let it just die out. Maybe I can teach it to someone someday."

"Teach me Gallifreyan, then."

He looked at her, clicking his tongue. "Not sure if I can, your mouth isn't the right shape."

"Thanks," Rose replied insincerely.

"Err… I mean some parts are hard for a human mouth to get around," he clarified.

"… I'm sure they are," she replied, raising an eyebrow.

He stopped dead, his eyes widening in horror. "No, no, I didn't mean that… I just meant you don't have the right ejaculation for complex contractions…"

She didn't even need to point out that, as his eyes widened even further.

"No, no, no, I didn't mean…" he garbled out.

"Doctor."

"Yeah?"

"You can stop talkin' now."

"Thank you," he breathed, and quickly moved off.

Rose giggled at his completely red face, taking his hand again.

"Is the hologram still with us?"

"Yeah," Rose said. It was a few paces ahead. "It's kinda weird, havin' two of you."

He laughed, but before he could answer they emerged into a new room – a massive, complex metal machine sat in the centre, lights flashing and beeping as it whirred away.

"Is that the shifter?" Rose asked.

"Yep," the Doctor replied, speeding up a little bit to get to a control panel. "Let's try and fix this…"

"Don't think you're fucking getting away!" Leo yelled, bursting into the room and making to take Rose hostage again… When he suddenly stopped, staring at the centre of the room where the hologram was. "Katie!" he gasped.

"It's a hol…" Rose began but the Doctor quickly stopped her, staring hard at Leo. The human man wasn't listening anyway, just staring at the hologram in utter horror.

"Katie, I'm sorry… I'm… No, I don't want you to be here!" he yelled, verging on tears. "Please don't be here!"

He paused, just listening to what the hologram had to say. Whatever it said, it made him burst in tears.

"I'm so sorry…" he wept, collapsing to his knees. "Katie, I'm so sorry, I've… I've killed so many people, please forgive me… I love you…"

Rose looked at the Doctor, who was just gazing at Leo as he began to sob. She moved forward, pulling Leo into a tight hug of comfort. Leo didn't resist, not until he suddenly looked up, attentive to something.

"No… Katie, why? I'm done, it's over… I just want us to go home… back to the kids… I don't want to… Not anymore… Oh god."

He suddenly looked at the Doctor, pulled back and held up the gun again – straight to his head. And this time they could both tell he was about to kill him; his jaw gritted, his eyes sad, the gun shaking badly in his hands.

"No," Rose said quickly, getting up and stepping in front of the Doctor to protect him.

"Rose," the Doctor began firmly, trying to move her aside.

She didn't budge, holding her ground firmly. "Leo, what are you doin'?"

"I have to kill him…" Leo told Rose, his voice wavering. "Please move out of the way, Rose."

She didn't. "Why d'you have to kill him?" she asked slowly, quietly.

"Katie… Katie says he bought her here. She says if I kill him everything will… It will just go back to normal… And I can go home."

"Katie's a hologram," the Doctor told him. "I think something's got into the shifter, some sort of virus. It's not Katie, I promise, she's not here. She's still back on the real Earth. She's safe."

"You're lying," Leo sobbed. "It's her."

"It's not, it's a defence mechanism," the Doctor explained. "A defence mechanism that's gone wrong."

"I can't risk that… I know, Katie, I know," he directed the latter to the hologram, tears rushing down his face before he looked back at the Doctor. "I… I don't have a choice."

"You always have a choice. Sometimes it's easier to think that you don't," the Doctor replied simply.

"I'm sorry," Leo croaked, and took aim.

"She  _is_ a hologram," Rose cut in quickly. "I can prove it. Look."

She stepped forward just enough to reach the hologram, but not enough to leave the Doctor unshielded. Leo was about to act when she passed her hand through the hologram.

The reaction was abrupt and shocking. Leo's eye widened, he gasped and instantly dropped the gun, collapsing sideways unconscious to the ground.

Rose bounded forward immediately, rolling him onto his back with care. "Leo? Leo, can you hear me?"

The Doctor moved forward, stooping to rest his fingers on Leo's temple. "Wow, massive neural implosion. Just couldn't cope."

"Is he okay?" Rose asked, concerned.

"I'm not sure, but…"

He stopped when Leo's eyes suddenly bolted open Bambi-wide. They flickered around, dazed and confused.

"Where am I?" he asked quietly.

The Doctor glanced around at their surroundings for a moment and pulled a face. "Err… long story. How are you feeling, Leo?"

He frowned. "Is that my name?"

The Doctor glanced at Rose, who was staring at him. "Leo, what's your partner's name?"

"… I have a partner?" Leo asked seriously.

"… Okay," the Doctor finally said after a slight pause. "Leo, I'm just going to send you to sleep, okay?"

"No, no…" Leo said quickly, shocked and terrified.

"It's fine," Rose told him. "He's a Doctor."

"What's a doctor?" Leo asked.

"Oh wow," the Doctor muttered, pressing his fingers to Leo's temple again. "Just relax."

Within moments Leo's eyes slipped closed into a peaceful sleep.

The Doctor drew back, frowning. "That's odd."

"What? Is it some kinda amnesia?" Rose asked, looking back down at Leo.

"It's most likely to be a fugue. Complete memory shutdown," the Doctor explained. "Not much we can do about that."

"He'll be okay, yeah?"

"Probably. Let's just try and fix this before he comes around again."

Rose nodded, getting up and helping the Doctor to his feet. She glanced at the hologram, slightly unnerved that he was still watching them, not having said a word.

"That hologram's starin' at me," Rose muttered.

"Ignore him," the Doctor replied simply, moving to the control panel to hammer away at the keyboard. Rose came up beside him, looking with interest at what he was doing, but the letters made no sense to her. A good minute passed.

"... Oh," he suddenly said.

"What?"

"This... This isn't malfunctioning."

"What d'you mean?" Rose asked anxiously.

"It's been purposely tampered with..."

"What? You mean someone's  _deliberately_ done all this?"

"Err… yes."

"But…"

Suddenly the machine whined and a burst of electric shot out, straight up the Doctor's arm and across the entirely of his body. He yelled in pain and Rose launched forward instinctively to help him…

"No, stay back!" the Doctor yelled, petrified that she'd get shocked too. "Stay away from me!"

Reluctantly she did, watching in horror as the electricity began to almost wrap itself around him like a blanket, and golden vapour began to rise from his skin…

"No!" Rose yelled in alarm – she could swear it was regenerative energy. "Doctor, what do I  _do?!"_

"Shut it off!" the Doctor yelled. "Override it and stop it!"

"How?!"

"Wait," the hologram suddenly said, stepping in front of Rose.

She ignored him, but the hologram suddenly caught her arm… it was solid.

"Let him go!" Rose demanded angrily.

"No," hologram Doctor replied.

"What? Why?! Let him go!"

"It's the shifter, Rose…" the hologram said, eyes fixing onto hers and staring… suddenly Rose began to feel light-headed, a bit dizzy… "It needs the lifeforce of a Time Lord to charge; to send all those people back to where they belong. We have to kill him."

"No…" Rose croaked, but it was as though her own thoughts weren't even in her head anymore – new ideas and new reasoning were forcing their way in and pushing all hers aside…

"Rose! What's he saying?!" the Doctor yelled from behind her, but she was ignoring him. It made sense. The shifter needed power, Time Lord power… It needed the Doctor to die…

"Let him die, Rose," the hologram told her gently.

Her head was telling her it was just one of those things that had to happen, but something else inside her was trying to fight, trying to push the thoughts out…

"Rose, whatever he's saying don't listen to him!" the Doctor begged. "It's trying to hypnotise you, fight it… Stop looking at it!"

"The Doctor must die," the hologram said calmly.

"The Doctor must die," Rose repeated, unable to blink.

"No, Rose, please," the Doctor practically begged. "Please listen to me, please look at me!"

"The Doctor must die," Rose said again, still not blinking.

"No, no, the Doctor must  _live!"_ the Doctor yelled back. "Rose, listen to me,  _listen_  to my voice…"

She turned her head to look at him, just in time for the electricity to disappear and he collapsed to the floor, golden energy still rising slowly into the air from his skin. Only his head was raised, staring at her… pleading.

"Rose, please…" he begged. He was paling more and more, losing strength as the life was sucked out of him… "You can fight… this…"

"The Doctor… must… die…" the words were being forced out of her, but she didn't want to say them…

"Saral'ei, Liala…" he gasped.

"The Doctor must die," Rose said, and this time she believed every word.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation: 
> 
> Saral'ei – Help me  
> Koshka tara kihca'u'time, ei'oh'ber'u vivi - Stop and phase in time, I want to come in  
> Nyoi'bionala'ce Time Lordha – Open for a Time Lord  
> Saral'ei, Liala – Help me, Rose
> 
> And in case you needed to know...  
> Nyoi'baniora sui'tyne'lorud'ia – Remember to open for five purple Grandmas


	20. Parting of the Ways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so cheesy that if you could build a cheese house in Cheeseland on planet Cheese and paint the walls, floors and ceilings with cheese before kicking back in your cheesy chair and eating a cheese sandwich smeared in cheese sauce you wouldn't even come close to using the amount of cheese in this chapter.
> 
> It's also 4000 words long. Argh!

"Something's not right."

The words came out of Rose's mouth, but she hadn't put them there. Or had she? Her mind was a whirl – thoughts were coming and going and she couldn't seem to hold onto any of them to make any sense of what she was thinking. She was just staring at the man lying on the floor unmoving, apparently hurt, but she had  _no_  idea what to do about it.

"Let him die, Rose," the voice said from behind her. "It's for the best."

"But…" Rose began, blinking a few times and gazing at the man on the floor. His thick brown hair was a mess, he was bruised and cut and blooded, and his eyes were closed. He was utterly helpless. That… That didn't seem right. "But he's… He's my friend."

Yes, that made sense. He  _was_ her friend. He was her… her  _best_ friend. And he was just lying there…

Dying.

"No!" she suddenly gasped, horror hitting her like a hammer to the face as she made forward to him. "Doctor!"

"Rose," the voice said again, a hand grabbing her arm. She looked back into the hologram's eyes, and immediately found her head lightening again…

"No!" she yelled again, closing her eyes and trying desperately to pull away from him, but his grip was like a vice. "Get off of me!"

"No," the hologram rasped.

She  _had_  to get out of this. She opened her eyes just enough to look around for something,  _anything_ that could help her – and found Leo's gun abandoned on the floor next to her feet. Instantly she dived for it and scooped it up, and without even thinking about the problems of shooting a hologram she spun around and shot the hologram Doctor straight through his chest.

The hologram corrupted and disappeared in a wash of binary code. Without a beat she dived to her knees beside the Doctor, rolling him onto his back. His head just lolled, but his eyes were open in slits.

"Doctor," she began desperately. "What do I do? Tell me what to do!"

He tried making a noise but his mouth didn't seem to have the energy to move. Rose's heart was running a marathon as she tried desperately to  _think_  her way out of this, but she was panicking very,  _very_  badly.

"Tell me!" she begged him, almost in tears now. "Please tell me how to save you!"

The golden light was still rising, without relent. It was taking all of his regeneration energy, his life force…

"No, no, no! Hold on! Just hold on!" she yelped, getting to her feet and running to the control panel. The keys were all Gallifreyan symbols. It was impossible.

No. No, it wasn't impossible. Anything was possible. She just had to calm down and think rationally. If there were Gallifreyan letters and Gallifreyan keyboards, then surely just like Earth the keyboard would have some kind of standard layout?

Not that that helped. She didn't know any Gallifreyan words…

Wait a minute. Yes she did.

"Saral'ei!" she exclaimed, leaning forward to examine the keys… and hedged her bets on an alphabet layout. She counted the keys across the rows, praying that the Gallifreyans had something similar. It was an extremely longshot but it was all she had. She started to key in the word. An S, then an A, then an R, then an A, then an L… and suddenly she had no idea where to go.

"I can't spell it!" Rose whined, looking back at the Doctor. He couldn't help her. He couldn't even move. She scrambled over to him anyway, lifting his limp hand and pressing his cold fingers to her temple like she'd seen so many times before.

"I need to spell saral'ei," she told him. "Please help me."

Nothing came back.

"Doctor!"

His eyes were nearly closed now, his body almost completely lifeless. There was nothing for it. She went back to the keyboard and whacked the biggest button she could see. Something blipped onto the screen and flashed… Just as the Doctor gasped in air, as though it was his first in weeks. He started coughing, and Rose went to him immediately.

"Doctor? Doctor!" she said quickly, resting a hand on his chest over his hearts. They were beating regularly, but he was still barely awake.

His eyes opened a little more, still coughing chestily before he looked up at her through slits.

"You did it," he croaked.

She burst out laughing – a laugh of pure delight, relief and a little surprise as she threw her arms around him in a big hug. "You're gonna be okay," she told him firmly. "I'm gonna look after you."

"Thanks," he wheezed out, and she laughed again and held him tighter.

"Rose?" called a voice from the doorway – it was her mum and the aliens. They stared at the sight before them in utter alarm – Rose holding an apparently dead Doctor…

"Doctor!" Vanaj cried, running forward instantly.

"It's okay," Rose said quickly. "He's okay."

Vanaj sagged in relief, as did the others behind him. "Thank Kichi," he breathed, but the relief was short lived as Jackie came forward to her daughter, her face solemn.

"Sweetheart, the sky's nearly gone," she said, surprisingly with complete calmness.

Rose nodded, pulling back from the Doctor and supporting his head as he continued to breathe rapidly, his eyes blinking to try and get some focus.

"Doctor, we need to save the world again," she told him urgently, pressing a hand to his face. "C'mon. Get up, lazybones."

He smiled a little at that, but that was all he gave. She laid him gently to the floor and got to her feet, gesturing for her mum to take over.

"Look after him, Mum," Rose said urgently, before moving to Vanaj. "How bad is it?"

"I dunno about timeframe, but the rate it was moving…" Vanaj trailed off, not really needing to finish that sentence.

"Okay. We need to start doin' somethin'. Where's Kilo?"

"Outside," Vanaj replied. "He was a bit stunned from the blast I think, he said he'd catch up."

"Go check on him," Rose ordered. "Bring him here; it's probably better if we're all together."

Vanaj nodded, and ran off.

Rose turned to Jux and G'uj. "You two okay?"

They nodded in sync.

"Is the Doctor all right?" G'uj asked, anxious.

"Yeah," Rose affirmed. "But we need to just do whatever he says, yeah?"

They both nodded again and moved forward, only to nearly trip over the still sleeping Leo.

"Is he dead?" Jux asked, deadpan.

"No," Rose replied. "But he's no threat now. We'll sort him out later. Mum?"

She turned to see her mum helping the Doctor sit up, who was looking like Death with a hangover.

"Doctor?" she asked quickly. "All right?"

"Can't… feel… legs," he managed to force out.

Rose checked the braces, and they were still on his legs and locked in place. They'd probably taken one too many hits – but there wasn't time to sort this out now.

"S'alright, I'll drag you," she told him, slipping her arms underneath his armpits and moving him across the floor back to the control panel with G'uj instantly moving to help.

They propped him up in front the panel, where he even needed a little help lifting his hands onto the keys. He began to type, and suddenly laughed.

"You… You brought up the FAQ… by typing in… 'help'," he told Rose, slowly getting back his strength. "That cancelled… the connection."

Rose couldn't help but laugh at that as he typed even more.

"Oh," he suddenly murmured.

"What?" Rose asked.

"Need to… to go to the… CPU," the Doctor muttered, looking as though he was going to pass out whenever he forced his voice box to make a noise. "This one… has no… access."

"Where's the CPU?" Rose asked urgently.

The Doctor grimaced, and forced his head up. They all followed his look to the very top of the giant machine, at least forty feet in the air with a single, very high ladder to get there.

Rose looked at it, and then at his legs, and then at him. "But…"

"S'cuse me," Jux said suddenly, pushing through to take the Doctor and haul him over his shoulders. Without even a pause the broad, strong alien went to the ladder and began to climb seemingly one-handed.

"Careful!" Rose said quickly.

"Sure," was all Jux muttered in reply, moving up the ladder with absolute ease. It was only about twenty seconds until the Doctor and Jux reached the top, and Jux dragged him to the control panel of the CPU, holding him up straight.

"Thanks, Jux," the Doctor muttered.

"Just do what you have to," Jux replied simply, a little out of breath.

"Are you okay?" Rose called up to them.

"Fine!" Jux yelled back, as the Doctor began to run his fingers along the keyboard.

* * *

Rose nodded, subconsciously reaching for her mum's hand and holding it tightly. The minutes passed like hours as they could only wait to see what the Doctor could do.

"Rose!" it was Vanaj, and Rose turned to see him dragging the body of Kilo behind him into the room. Putting aside the Doctor for a moment, she let go of her Mum and ran to them.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I don't know, he's not talking to me," Vanaj said anxiously.

"Kilo?" Rose asked the unresponsive alien. He was just lying there, his eyes closed. She rested a hand on his chest to try and find some kind of heart beat. She eventually found something thudding, but it seemed very, very slow.

"Is it supposed to beat like that?" she asked, looking at Vanaj.

Vanaj checked the thudding, and his eyes widened. "No… Kichi," he breathed. "That's so slow."

"Kilo, can you hear me?" Rose asked.

"Can I do anythin'?" Jackie wondered, moving next to them.

"Keep talkin' to him," Rose replied, pulling off her hoody and covering Kilo with it. "Doctor?!" she called up. "Something's really wrong with Kilo!"

* * *

"Tell her… I'm nearly… done," the Doctor breathed out.

"He's nearly done!" Jux called down, still panting for breath.

The Doctor picked up on this, looking at him with concern. "You okay?"

"Never mind me," Jux said seriously through gasps for air. "Fix this fir…"

He suddenly collapsed sideways, gasping for air. The Doctor jumped in alarm, moving over to the alien on his elbows to check him over.

"Jux," he gasped. "Jux, c'mon…"

"Forget me…" Jux breathed. "Get on with it…"

The Doctor could only do what he was told to, so he groaned and dragged himself back to the control panel, now working twice as fast. He flashed through screen after screen of diagnostics until he reached the final screen. It needed a password.

"Fun, isn't it," a voice said from behind him, and he managed to turn himself over to see Rose standing there, beaming from ear to ear. Except it wasn't Rose, of course. It was a hologram.

"Tell me the… password," the Doctor breathed out, eyebrows lowering.

"You're not havin' fun?" the hologram Rose asked, tilting her head in concern.

"No, actually, I'm not," the Doctor spat back. "Tell me the password so I… so I can fix this."

"Nah," hologram Rose replied simply, laughing.

"This isn't funny!" the Doctor rasped out. "This is sick! Who are you and why have you done this?!"

"Oh, come on, Time Lord," the hologram said, sounding quite disappointed. "Can't even have a guess?"

She raised her hand, holding up her palm to show him a symbol burnt into it. He recognised it instantly, and his hearts dropped.

"No," he gasped, trying to back away but he couldn't go any further.

"Fun, isn't it?" the hologram said again, but this time as it spoke it flashed through several people, Rose, Jackie, Jack, Sarah, the Master, his mother, his brother, Vanaj, G'uj, Jux… until it finally stopped on himself in his Tenth form. He stood there looking like a zombie, bits of him decaying and dropping off even as he watched…

"Faction Paradox," the Doctor whispered. "Why? Why have you done this to Earth?"

"For you, Time Lord. All for you. This is brilliant, because it's the biggest paradox in the Sol region  _ever_ to occur, and it's so brilliantly executed," his mirror imaged-self told him, utterly gleeful. "You can't let them live, because the paradox would eventually swell and the Sol 3 would just eat itself… But you can't kill them, because it amounts to genocide. But by not killing them, the time stream is impure, and it is your duty as a Time Lord to kill them. But you won't; betraying your honourable society of pompous men in dresses and you'll be in the Oubliette of Eternity in seconds. You, Time Lord, are completely defeated. You might as well just let the machine kill you. All the other Time Lords before killed themselves in extremely imaginative ways…" the hologram pointed to the workings of the machine, where for the first time the Doctor noticed about five skeletons entangled within, having jumped to impale themselves on the machinery. They still wore their Gallifreyan robes.

A chill ran up his spine, but it only heightened his determination. "Oh, but you're pre-programmed, aren't you? You don't know," the Doctor said, his hand reaching out behind him to try and find Jux's gun.

"Know what?" the hologram asked, still smiling.

"The Gallifreyans are dead. Wiped out."

The hologram stumbled a little at that. "W-what?"

"I killed them," the Doctor spat, Jux handing him the gun behind his back. "I killed them all. The Time Lords are extinct – I'm the last one."

"Does not compute," the hologram suddenly said, his eyes wide.

"Grandfather Paradox and all his little paradox friends are dead," the Doctor continued, almost gleefully.  _"Fun,_ isn't it?!"

"Does… not… compute…" the hologram buzzed out.

"I am the last Time Lord, and eon'lei  _serva ei!"_ the Doctor screamed out, raising the gun and shooting the hologram. The power source died and it cut out in mid-scream. The Doctor abandoned the gun and dived for the control panel, and hitting in the password, 'Grandfather'. The computer beeped approval, and the room began to shake as the process began.

* * *

"Doctor?!" Rose called up in alarm.

"Run!" the Doctor yelled down. "It's gonna blow up! Get out!"

"Not without you!"

"You've  _got_ to!"

"No!" Rose screamed back, angry.

"Rose, run," G'uj said suddenly said, moving to the ladder.

"No, G'uj!" Vanaj yelled suddenly, still kneeling next to Kilo's near lifeless body. "I'll…"

"Rose," Jackie suddenly said, turning to her daughter. "See Vanaj and Kilo out."

"What?" Rose croaked, utterly knocked for six.

"I'm gonna help G'uj get 'im, sweetheart. He can't do it on his own."

"No, Mum!" Rose shrieked out in complete alarm.

"Sorry, love," Jackie said, ever calm. "But I've seen enough, now. I love you."

She turned, and ran to the ladder to start ascending. Rose could only watch in horror as it swayed, breaking at the base – but still her mum continued upwards with a stroke of complete bravery…

"Rose," Vanaj urged.

"I'm not leavin'!" Rose screamed.

"They'll be fine!" Vanaj yelled back, though even he wasn't sure about that. But there was nothing he could do about what was happening and he needed to look after Rose – for the Doctor, and Jackie. "Let's get out!"

"No," Rose choked, but Vanaj was already on the move, dragging Kilo through the door. Leo was still on the floor, completely helpless.

"Rose!" Vanaj called again, and her legs began to move without her really telling them to. She ran to Leo, dragging him out of the danger zone and into the corridor.

* * *

"Doctor! Jux!" G'uj gasped as he made it to the top, where he found the Time Lord and Jux sitting up against the wall, Jux not looking well at all.

"No, G'uj!" the Doctor yelped. "Run!"

"No man left behind," G'uj told him firmly, taking his arm and dragging him across the platform just as Jackie's head popped up, clearly out of breath from the climbing.

"Jackie!" the Doctor panicked. "No, leave! Make sure Rose is safe!"

"Stop  _bloody_ playin' the hero," Jackie said, a little annoyed as she took the Doctor's arm from G'uj and tried to pull him down onto the ladder.

"Jackie,  _please,"_ he begged, refusing to shift. "You're going to get yourself killed…"

"For god's sake, Doctor," Jackie huffed. "I ain't doin' this for me, now shut up and get on the  _bloody_ ladder else I'm  _really_ gonna tear you a new one."

She put an arm around his chest and dragged him down onto the ladder, where his hands gripped and his legs dangled uselessly. But she kept a firm hold on him, and began to move the both of them down. The base of the column creaked even more, and with an abrupt jolt the whole thing moved sideways – Jackie only just managed to keep a hold of the Doctor. She was quite plainly struggling.

"Please,  _please_ just let me go," the Doctor begged her again.

"No!"

"Why are you doing this?!"

"I thought you were s'posed to be clever!" Jackie scoffed, and the platform lurched again. "D'you  _really_ wanna have this conversation now?"

"What conversation?" the Doctor asked seriously as they reached a quarter of the way down.

"Okay," she began insincerely. "I've thought about it for a while, and I'm okay with you havin' sex with Rose, but I'm gonna need you to explain to me 'ow alien babies work cos I dunno if my Rose is gonna 'ave to give birth out of 'er 'ead or somethin'…"

The Doctor seemed to turn white and blush deeply at the same time, like an embarrassed snowman. "Jackie, I don't…"

"Oh, stop bein' so wet," Jackie reprimanded. The column jolted again, shifting a little more. "It's obvious."

"I would  _never…"_

"Stop!" Jackie shrieked suddenly, and the Doctor stopped dead as his hearts began a double-speed Charleston. He was about to ask what had happened, but found Jackie suddenly had her hand around the neck of his jumper, absolutely fuming.

"Jackie?" he asked seriously, quite confused.

"Don't think I 'aven't picked up on it! You love 'er, she loves you, you  _are_ gonna get married, you  _are_ gonna give me grandchildren, and you  _are_ gonna  _bloody_ enjoy it!" she screamed directly in his face.

He stared at her for a while, big puppy eyes, wide and confused. "… Okay?" he finally squeaked, more as a question than an affirmation.

"Good!" she yelled in his face, and they continued downwards. The column shifted again, and sirens began to blare, and a Gallifreyan voice began…

_"E'i-ternin u sasa'ces lino'ia… Sui'ces'sima lino'ia… Sui'ces'sin lino'ia…"_

"What is that?!" Jackie yelled.

"Self-destruct!" the Doctor shouted, still a little blanched. "We've got fifty-eight seconds until this place blows up! G'uj! Jux! Move!"

_"Sui'ces'sara lino'ia…"_

"Fifty-seven!" the Doctor amended.

Jackie shrieked, and began to move faster. She only let go of the Doctor for two seconds to reposition herself, but this caused the Doctor to slip and nearly fall the rest of the way. She caught him just in time by the wrist, but instantly her grip was slipping.

"Grab the ladder with your other hand, idiot!" Jackie screamed down at him, far too full of adrenaline and fear to care about how insulting she was.

"No! Let go!" the Doctor implored.

"No!" she cried, but her own grip was sliding. "Get a rung!"

"It's only twenty feet, I'll survive!" the Doctor yelled back. "Please let go! Trust me!"

For a moment they just gazed at each other; reading each other's eyes. She really, really did trust him in  _so_  many ways. She had to. So she did what she was told, and released her fingers. His wrist slipped out and he began to plummet downwards.

_"Susu'ces'sa lino'ia…"_

He hit the floor, slightly dazed but unhurt by the fall. Rose ran over and Jackie sped up descending the ladder – she was on the ground in ten seconds, shortly followed by G'uj and Jux with the latter leaning on the young alien for support.

_"Sa'ces'sara lino'ia…"_

"Thirty-seven seconds!" the Doctor translated.

Without a pause, Rose began dragging the Doctor out into the corridor where Vanaj was waiting with Kilo. One nod and they were all off, Jackie grabbing Leo on the way. They didn't stop, just running down the corridor that somehow seemed suddenly eternal to reach the entrance and dive through the door to the world outside.

 _"Su'ces lino'ia…"_  the voice continued in its countdown, and it seemed to be coming from the sky. A blood red sky which seemed to literally be  _falling_ ; the rain actually little bits of the sky falling to the ground... And there was a crack, right in front of them, some kind of split in the actual universe itself.

"The world's going to reset," the Doctor gasped through the crash of the falling rain. "I've told the shifter to transmat everyone it's taken back to the ordinary world. You're going to end up on the real Scafell Pike. Rose, Jackie, take the aliens back to the flat."

"You're talkin' like you're not comin' with us," Rose realised.

He looked at her, sad. "When the countdown ends, I've programmed it to transmat humans and aliens back to the ordinary world, and the life forms it doesn't recognise into a new second. That's all the hominids, the dinosaurs, the Giants... They'll be able to live in a new second with no interference. And me being a Time Lord... I'm not going to be transmatted at all; it expects me to have my TARDIS with me. I'll have five hours before this second of time is wiped clean, including all of the people left in it, which should just be me, really. With the self-destruct, the shifter will be useless it won't be able to take anyone else from now on."

_"Ces'sui lino'ia..."_

"But... no!" Rose realised. "You can't, you can't walk..."

"I'm sorry," he muttered.

"I'm not leavin' you here!" she yelled.

"You don't have a choice," the Doctor insisted. "Please, Rose, you need to look after the others."

She was in tears, now. It didn't even feel embarrassing despite everyone watching her. "But you'll be wiped..."

"If I can get to the rift I stand a chance," the Doctor told her. "There's a slight chance it won't take Jack either, so if I can find him..."

He trailed off.

_"Ces lino'ia..."_

"Ten seconds," he muttered. The trees were already starting to disappear, the lake seemingly just evaporating into nothing...

Rose couldn't do anything, she knew that. But that wouldn't stop her crying. Sniffing, she reached into her already wet-through jacket pocket and pulled out her phone, giving it to him.

"Take it," she blubbed out, hardly able to pronounce words. "Use it."

He nodded, pocketing it. "Thank you."

Then she resigned to herself, wrapping her arms around him in a tight, loving embrace. She rested her head on his chest, her ear against his hearts. They were drumming like mad. He held her in return in a squidgy hug - the both of them utterly soaked through by the rain. Neither really cared.

_"Sui lino'ia..."_

"Five," the Doctor murmured.

She nodded, still listening to his hearts. The others just watched in silence around them.

"I want my phone back," she told him jokingly through a pained smile. "You'd better be alive to give it back to me when you're done with it else I'm gonna be mad."

He laughed at that, but didn't reply.

Rose drew away, gazing at him for a moment. She pushed back his soaking fringe that was plastered to his head, and kissed his forehead. It was all impulse.

_"Sa lino'ia..."_

"See ya," she told him through a watery smile.

_"Su lino'ia…"_

"See ya," he echoed, and just gazed into her eyes for a moment, unspoken words fluttering around in the air around them; never to be spoken. They just couldn't manage it.

_"Ce lino…"_

But there was one thing he could do. He leant forward, and returned the kiss to her forehead. She smiled at him, taking his hand and squeezing it.

_… Ternin."_

The Doctor closed his eyes as she was finally swallowed up in a bright blue light, along with the others. The shifter disappeared, and he was left alone in a world quickly decimating to nothing.

He didn't expect to see them again, but he would die trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:
> 
> Eon'lei serva e'i! – You will obey me!  
> E'i-ternin u sasa'ces lino'ia – Self-destruct in 60 seconds  
> Sa lino'ia… Su lino'ia… Ce lino… Ternin. – 3… 2… 1… destruct.


	21. Out of Time Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you order some ham with that cheese? :o

It wasn’t until the moment they transmatted in did Rose and Jackie realise just how _loud_ planet Earth was.

As the Doctor had said, they’d appeared right on the top of Scafell Pike. Judging by the cold, dark and lack of people, it was obviously the middle of the night – but they could still hear the cars, the wildlife, and sounds of the night echoing up to them from miles below.

“We’re back,” Rose breathed, getting to her feet quickly.

“We’re back!” Jackie echoed far more positively than her daughter, as suddenly her face lifted like a million years of torment being forgotten in a second. “Oh, I bloody over this planet. How long were we gone?”

Rose shrugged. “Dunno…” she checked around for the others, counting heads to make sure everyone had made it. They had. “D’you have your phone?” she directed to her mum.

Jackie nodded and handed it over, but it had no signal. Rose sighed and gave it back.

“He’ll be fine, sweetheart,” Jackie assured, noticing her fallen expression. “He always is.”

Rose sighed again, looking back at the others. Kilo and Leo were still unconscious, and Jux was about to follow them. She couldn’t worry about the Doctor now; she had to sort the others out first.

“Where do we go?” Vanaj asked.

“Home,” Rose told him. “And wait for the Doctor.”

\----------

Left sitting on a bunch of rocks on top of a mountain as the world quite literally crumbled around his ears, the Doctor wasn’t even sure how exactly he was going to get out of this.

He checked the sky – almost completely red, except for small pieces of black, like holes in the sky. It was a view straight into the void. He pushed back his soaked hair from his eyes, and looked back down the mountain. It was a long way down, and even further to get to Cardiff.

There was hardly any point trying, but he couldn’t really sit here and do nothing either.

He was about to move, when suddenly Rose’s phone began to ring. He frowned and picked up.

“Um, hello?” he wondered.

“… _Doctor?”_ Jack asked.

The Doctor breathed a small sigh of relief. Never had he been more happy to hear Jack’s voice. “Yes, it’s me. Where are you?”

“ _Oh geez, am I glad to hear you. I’m near Preston, heading up. Where is everyone?”_

“Okay, better than I thought,” the Doctor muttered, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve sorted out the Switch… but do you want the bad news, the even worse news, or the news that's even worse than that?"

 _"Oh, you spoil me,”_ Jack said insincerely. _“Gimme the bad and then work your way down."_

“Okay, well, the bad news is the world’s going to end.”

“… _What the hell is worse than that?”_

“We’ve got five hours to get to Cardiff and work out how to use the rift to get back before we both get erased from existence.”

“… _I don’t even wanna hear the last one, do I?”_

“I’m in the Lake District on the very top of Scafell Pike and my legs don’t work.”

Jack sighed. _“You really weren’t exaggerating. Where’s Rose?”_

“Safe, she’s back in the ordinary world, with her Mum, Sarah, the aliens and all the people the shifter took. I’ve shifted all the evolution creatures to a different second of time so they’re fine too, and then initialised the shifter’s self-destruct. It’s just you and me left on this world, now. It’s not taken me because I’m a Time Lord, and it’s not taken you because you don’t really register as a life-form.”

“ _Charmer,”_ Jack muttered. _“All right, I’ll be with you in about two hours.”_

“Make that thirty minutes.”

“ _I’ll try. You do realise from Scafell Pike to Cardiff is about five hours and we don’t really stand a chance of getting out in time?”_

“Yep,” the Doctor assured him. “Put your foot down.”

“ _Yessir,”_ Jack replied, and hung up.

\----------

Jack reached Scafell Pike in around 45 minutes, after a terrifying blitz of pedal to metal. He drove up the mountain, and eventually found the Doctor halfway down. He’d obviously dragged himself most of the way down as he was on his front, absolutely soaked and covered in mud. He pulled up next to the Time Lord, getting out quickly to go to him.

“Evening,” he greeted, grabbing the utterly bedraggled Time Lord under the arms and hauling him into the passenger seat without a pause.

“Ow, ow, ow,” the Doctor said feebly, shivering.

“Sorry,” Jack said sincerely, getting his legs straight in the car. “Put up your arms.”

“What?”

“I need to take off your clothes.”

The Doctor stared at him. “T-time and place,” he stated seriously.

Jack grinned at the thought. “No, you’re wet through. You’ll get hypothermia.”

“Time Lords d-don’t get…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack dismissed, grabbed his soaking jumper and yanking it up.

“Hey,” the Doctor protested, muffled beneath the jumper until Jack managed to get his head out, and chucked the jumper behind him. There was no messing about. He went straight for the jeans next.

“No, ah, no,” the Doctor said quickly, holding his hands up.

“Close your eyes and pretend I’m blonde,” Jack replied, utterly deadpan.

The Doctor instantaneously turned redder than a tomato. “What?!” he almost shrieked out.

“Joke!” Jack insisted, finally managing to get the water-logged heavy jeans off of the Time Lord, leaving him sitting there in a t-shirt and boxers and completely red.

“I’m getting déjà vu,” Jack admitted, staring at him.

“This was in a d-dream you h-had once,” the Doctor replied airily, still shivering.

“Oh yeah,” Jack realised, and then frowned. “How did you know?”

“Lucky g-guess,” the Doctor muttered, relaxing against the headrest.

For a moment, Jack just stared at him. The Time Lord, the last Time Lord in the Universe. The Time Lord who’d just saved millions now completely vulnerable, with around four hours until he was probably going to be wiped from existence.

“End of the world?” the Doctor reminded him.

“I was getting there,” Jack insisted, pulling off his coat and throwing it over the Time Lord before moving back around to the driver’s seat. The ground was drenched, and his shoes seemed to sink around an inch with every step.

He finally climbed into the car and shut the door, making to turn the heater up to maximum for the Doctor’s benefit. He glanced at the Time Lord again, sitting there, exhausted.

It was completely up to Jack to get him out of this.

Steeling himself with renewed determination, Jack hit the accelerator to speed his way down to Cardiff.

\----------

It was the TARDIS. The actual TARDIS. She was sitting there waiting in the exact place she had been parked before in the flat, humming and vibrating slightly like she always did.

The amount of joy that filled Rose was like a rushing warmth of happiness – the sort of warm rush she felt when drinking hot soup on a cold day. The first thing she did when she saw it was get her key out from around her neck and unlock the door, charging inside like a kid into the best sweetshop in town.

The TARDIS looked normal. Everything looked normal. Shockingly normal. The engines throbbed and hummed; the lights bright and welcoming. She beckoned the others inside and led them straight to the infirmary.

She had very little knowledge of the Doctor’s medical instruments, but she had learnt a few things by what she’d seen him use. So the first thing she did was use the scanner on Kilo, the TARDIS helpfully changing the language for her benefit.

The scan took three minutes, Vanaj, G’uj and Jackie all just standing around watching the scanner as sets of red lasers moved up and down his body… and finally the results came through.

“That can’t be right,” Rose muttered, leaning forward to the screen to check she hadn’t read it wrong.

“What is it?” Vanaj asked, unable to read the English.

“It says he’s dyin’ of old age,” she said, confused.

“What? How?” G’uj asked.

Rose shrugged. “No idea.”

“Check Jux,” Vanaj said suddenly, glancing at the other alien lying on the bed.

Rose looked at him. “Got an idea?”

“Maybe,” he said, moving to pick up Jux.

“Can I do anythin’?” Jackie wondered suddenly. “Get some food?”

Rose nodded, helping to shift Jux onto the scanner bed. “That’d be great.”

“Does the Doctor have a kitchen?” Jackie wondered seriously.

Rose giggled at that. “Yeah, the TARDIS’ll take you there, don’t worry.”

Jackie took a breath. “I hope he’s got some normal food,” she murmured, and swept out of the door.

They initialised the scanner again, and stood back to wait for the results.

“You’re really calm about the Doctor,” Vanaj suddenly said, looking at her.

“He’s all right,” Rose insisted positively.

“Forgive me, but how do you know?”

“Because I can still understand you,” Rose told him. “The TARDIS translates all languages for me and makes me speak them, but she needs the Doctor to work. So the only time I’m gonna worry is when I can’t understand you anymore. So if it’s been nine hours for us and it’s still translating, maybe time’s sorta becoming distorted in that world or somethin’.”

Vanaj considered that for a moment, and then nodded. “Makes sense,” he supposed, and then looked around the room for a moment until his eyes rested on Leo, still fast asleep. “What’re we going to do with the human man?”

Rose shrugged, her eyes still on the scanner. “Take him back home, I guess. When the Doctor gets here,” she added on the end, just as the results pinged onto the screen.

“Old age?” Vanaj wondered.

Rose nodded. “Yeah. What you thinkin’?”

“The resurrection machine,” Vanaj said, glancing at G’uj, who just stared at him blankly. “Kilo got revived the most, didn’t he? Then it was Jux, then me…”

“Oh!” G’uj realised. “You mean this is something to do with that?”

“Not only this, but also being immortal. I think the machine’s done it.”

“You mean like a sorta side effect?” Rose wondered.

Vanaj nodded. “Maybe it’s something to do with some sort of… I can’t think of a better word; some sort of lifeforce. Maybe Zow’s machine gives you more lifeforce or something, and now it’s sort of…”

“Draining away?” Rose wondered.

“Yeah. Also, it’s like the more times they got revived, the quicker they collapsed,” Vanaj pointed out. “Which means…”

He suddenly stopped dead in his sentence, his eyes wide. Without a beat, Rose and G’uj realised it too…

“… Vanaj? Are we going to collapse as well?” G’uj asked quietly.

Vanaj looked at the young alien, and then looked at Rose, and then the floor… as if ashamed of what he was about to say next. “I… I think so.”

“What about the Doctor? He used the machine….” G’uj croaked out.

It fell extremely quiet, for what seemed like forever.

Breaking through the silence, Rose suddenly stepped forward. “The Doctor’ll be here before that happens. He’ll fix it,” she assured them.

G’uj nodded, absolutely positive. But no matter how hard Vanaj tried to believe it, somehow he knew that the Doctor probably wasn’t going to be there to do any fixing.

\----------

Jack and the Doctor reached Birmingham with an hour left on the clock, which was a very impressive feat – but it wasn’t looking very promising. Jack had to go slower and slower as pieces of the road actually began to disappear, even as his car was approaching them.

He’d worked it out. To reach Cardiff before the five hours were up meant he had to average at around 81.2mph. The route meant he really had to drop to 50mph, even 40mph at some points, and then to make up for it he had to go a good 120mph where it was possible. Frankly he was too scared to take his foot off of the pedal.

He _liked_ driving fast in cars, but not in this kind of situation. Not with a mortal passenger, a passenger that wouldn’t be able to dive out and run if Jack hit something. And he nearly had, _several_ times.

His passenger had scarcely spoken throughout the drive either. The Doctor was just sitting there, barely awake and barely coherent enough to talk. Jack had no idea what was wrong with him but it wasn’t like he had the time to pull over and find out. He couldn’t even glance to the side. So he tried to keep him talking instead; bringing up a variation of subjects from something funny Suzie did the previous week to how many species of bears there were on the planet Peux. But the Doctor didn’t even _try_ to maintain a conversation for more than thirty seconds.

It wasn’t until they reached Worchester did Jack realise the Doctor had stopped talking altogether. Whilst on a straight he had to risk a side glance at the Time Lord – he was extremely pale and breathing rapidly.

“Doctor?” Jack urged, looking back at the road. No response. “Doctor!” he repeated, firmer, more urgent. Nothing. “Doc, if you don’t answer me I’m gonna have to stop and check you!”

“Keep… driving…” the Doctor croaked out.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jack asked anxiously.

“S’ok,” the Doctor assured him. “Drive.”

Jack knew he was lying, but he couldn’t exactly do anything about it. So he did what he was told, and kept driving.

\-----------

Vanaj was the next to fall, and Rose had no idea what to do about it. Even if it was exactly what Vanaj had said, how the hell was she supposed to fix that? She wouldn’t even know where to begin. Only the Doctor could figure it out, she was sure about that.

It had been four hours since she’d left the Doctor at the top of the Lake District, and even though she tried desperately to think positively, she knew that him getting out in time was going to be extremely difficult. But they liked difficult, so she cast the thoughts very quickly out of her head.

She’d phoned Sarah to check she was okay and fill her in on the details of what exactly had happened, and in turn Sarah assured her that he’d been in far worse situations than this and to him pressure was just a bit of fun.

That was true. So she reassured herself with it, and kept waiting as the minutes ticked by.

\---------

Against all of the odds, Jack had maintained enough speed to reach Cardiff Bay with two minutes left on the clock. But that still meant they only had two minutes to work out a way of using the rift.

Jack went straight the Doctor’s door and pulled him out; making sure his coat was wrapped firmly around the Time Lord to keep him warm.

“Doctor,” Jack said quickly. “We’re here. We’ve got two minutes.”

He didn’t respond. Jack checked his pulse – he was still going, so he lifted him up and carried him to the exact place of the rift, dodging chasms in the ground as he went. It was like skipping stones. At the root of the rift he waited, sort of expecting something to happen. Nothing did.

“Doctor,” Jack urged, shaking the Time Lord’s shoulder. “What do I do?”

He didn’t even flinch.

“Doctor!” Jack said, more firmly. “What do I do? How do I get us through the rift?!”

He slapped the Doctor’s cheek, shook his shoulders, yelled in his face, pinched his arm… Nothing woke him, and there was only one minute left.

He was utterly comatose.

It was suddenly up to Jack entirely – and he no idea what to do. There was barely any ground left to walk on as it fell to pieces; the sky nearly completely black and atomless…

“Doctor!” Jack tried again, more out of desperation than anything. “Come on, I need you! Help me out, here!”

The Doctor just laid there, his chest rising and falling rapidly…

“Fuck!” Jack swore in a combination of shock, anger and grief, shaking the Doctor so hard it nearly broke his neck. “Doctor! Wake the hell up!”

Twenty seconds to go, and Jack was resigned to it. Resigned to his fate. Not that it meant he could accept it for one second.

“The Time Lords don’t die like this!” he yelled at the Doctor. “You can’t just give up! Wake up!”

To Jack, the twenty seconds went by surprisingly slowly. It felt more like twenty minutes than twenty seconds as the clock approached zero – the cruelty of relativity giving Jack all the time in the world when he knew he could do nothing to change the end.

“I’m sorry. I tried,” Jack muttered to the comatose Doctor, kissing him firmly on the lips. Then he held him tightly in his arms, closing his eyes to brace himself.

The Doctor shifted slightly, and opened his eyes to see Jack above him, holding him tightly. Jack looked down sharply.

“It’s okay,” the Doctor whispered, barely able to get the words out.

Jack just nodded, held onto his best friend even tighter and closed his eyes as the last of the world disappeared from around them.

\----------

Rose had to go to bed eventually… not that she had wanted to. She needed to look after the aliens until the Doctor got there – it was her responsibility on his behalf. But she had _had_ to concede when she could barely sit up straight on the chair, and went to her bedroom to have a nap.

It was G’uj, the only conscious alien left, who came to wake her up.

“Kilo’s not looking good,” he muttered.

Rose sighed, head in her hands. “I don’t know what to do,” she confessed.

“The Doctor’ll be hejoor zoor,” G’uj replied, smiling positively.

“Yeah,” Rose muttered without really paying attention, getting up. “Where’s my Mum?”

“Rose, ike think you herrker circuit jaar,” G’uj suddenly said, looking at Rose with a frown.

“What?” Rose asked, looking at him.

“Zantoor?” G’uj asked, confused at her reply.

“G’uj!” she shrieked, sitting bolt upright. “You can understand me, yeah? Please!”

“Ike jooz luzz foorkor fizoor…” G’uj replied, his eyes widening too.

The conclusion hit her like a pickaxe swinging right into her heart; with all the shock, pain and horror at least four fold what she could have even _feared_ anticipating…

The translation circuit had gone. The Doctor was gone.

And she could do nothing about it.


	22. Three Rubber Ducks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to pre-Gwen, pre-Ianto Torchwood! I have no idea how to characterise Suzie. But she seemed quite nice before she went psycho.

Rose ran – ran straight to the TARDIS phone and nearly knocked over her mother coming the other way. She didn't even stop to apologise, her feet hammering hard on the grating until she finally reached the console room.

Without hesitation she went to the phone and dialled her own number, biting her tongue until it began to ring… And was picked up fast. Too fast…

" _Und unsere Gegner, sie schreien es heute heraus: Deutschland soll untergehen! Und unsere Gegner, sie schreien es heute heraus: Deutschland soll untergehen!"_  a voice suddenly screamed in her ear, nearly blowing out her eardrum with the surprise… Until she realised who was speaking…

"Sweetheart, what's goin' on?!" Jackie gasped out, having followed her at a run.

"Mum, Mum listen…" she said quickly, holding the phone to her.

" _Und unsere Gegner, sie schreien es heute heraus: Deutschland soll untergehen!"_

"Bloody hell!" she cried, staring at the phone in horror. "You've called Hitler!"

Rose took it back, pressing it to her ear again as Hitler continued to rant in her ear. "Doctor? Doctor, are you there?!"

Suddenly the phone went into static, and another voice came through…

" _Watson – come here – I want to see you… Watson – come here – I want to see you… Watson – come here – I want to see you…"_

"Something's wrong with time," Rose said quickly. "That was Hitler, now I can hear the first telephone call…"

" _That's one small step for man… one giant leap for mankind… That's one small step for man… one giant leap for mankind… That's one small step for man… one giant leap for mankind…"_

"Neil Armstrong," she told Jackie as G'uj finally made it into the room.

"Boorzar jorr kaaroz Doctor?" he asked, frowning.

Rose got the gist of his question and shook her head at him, biting her lip again. "Doctor!" she tried again.

It changed once more, the static coming and going like someone trying to tune in a radio…

" _It's a long way to Tipperary! It's a long way to go! It's a long way to Tipperary! It's a long way to go! It's a long way to Tipperary!"_

"Why's it doing that?" Jackie asked quickly.

"Fragments of time… I think where the phone is time is all in pieces," she replied. "So it's picking out history and repeating it… Doctor, answer me!"

" _Rose?"_

"Doctor?!"

" _Rose?"_

"Oh god, I thought you were dead!" she gasped, almost in tears at the pure relief. "I can't under-"

" _Rose?"_ he interrupted without hesitation.

"What?"

" _Rose?"_ he repeated again…

"No, Doctor…" she whispered as she realised…

" _Rose?"_

Like the recordings. He was on a loop. He was just a recording, a fragment of time…

"Shut up!" she screamed down the phone, absolutely livid. "Don't do this to me!"

" _Rose?"_

It went to static again.

" _We shall fight on the beaches; we shall fight on the landing grounds… We shall fight on the beaches; we shall fight on the landing grounds… We shall fight on the beaches; we shall fight on the landing grounds…"_

"No," Rose sobbed, but didn't have any time to even react to it as suddenly the TARDIS console partially exploded, and the room began to shake badly.

Jackie shrieked and dived for her daughter and G'uj went for the chair. The cloister bell started ringing as they lurched about from side to side in a terrifying fairground ride…

And suddenly stopped.

"What was that?" G'uj asked quickly, and it was quite a few moments until Rose realised what that meant.

"Say that again!" she demanded, he breath caught in her throat.

He looked at her, astounded. "I understood that!"

"He's alive?!" Jackie gasped, hand over her mouth.

"Yes!" Rose cried in delight, and went for the TARDIS phone again.

* * *

Jack snapped open his eyes, and found about six people staring back at him, confused and worried. He frowned a little, and then slowly began to process…

"Is this Earth?!" he asked dumbly.

"He's got some kinda amnesia!" a Welsh man yelled over him to someone else.

"It's gonna be fine, honey," a Welsh woman assured him, smiling gently and resting a hand on his shoulder.

He ignored them, looking around anxiously for the Doctor. He saw a glimpse of him through a throng of people, and got up despite the people protests. He pushed through the crowd to get to the Time Lord, dropping down beside him and checking for a pulse. He was still going.

"Were you guys mugged?" a woman asked anxiously. "We've called the police and an ambulance!"

Jack looked at her for a moment, and then used the Doctor's body to shield himself getting out his headset and fixing it on his ear.

"Guys, give me a distraction on the Plass," he urged into the headset. "… Don't ask why, just do it!"

Seconds later, a gunshot rang out. Instantly the crowd screamed and scattered in terror, enabling Jack to grab the Doctor and run full pelt to the lift. It was a little difficult to activate it without dropping the Doctor, but eventually the lift began to descend down into the bowels of Torchwood to reveal his employees staring back at him and this strange new man.

"Jack?" Tosh wondered, confused.

"Where have you been?" Suzie asked.

"Owen, gimme a hand," Jack said, ignoring the questions for now. The London man grabbed one half of the unconscious Doctor to carry him to the medical room with Jack.

"Who's this?" Suzie asked, following them until they got to the table and rested the Doctor on it.

"The Doctor," Jack replied, but didn't explain any further. "Owen, his species won't be in the files, and I don't want you to add it. Don't scan him, don't take any notes, and nothing with aspirin. Treat him as best you can, please."

"No problem," Owen replied under his breath, somewhat sarcastically.

"Jack!" Suzie insisted, getting slightly annoyed now. "Mind filling us in?"

"Hold on," Jack said quickly and retrieved her phone from the Doctor as Owen began to buzz around the room to work his magic. "I need to call Rose."

But to his surprise, the phone began to ring in his hand. A call from 'Home'. He picked up.

"Hello?"

" _Jack?!"_

"Rose!" he realised. "Hi, we've got out, so relax."

" _Oh, thank god,"_ she breathed.  _"Where is he?!"_

"Here in my base. My doctor, Owen, is treating him…"

" _He's okay, yeah?"_

Jack glanced at the Doctor, not sure how to answer that for a moment. "Everything's fine," he eventually dismissed. "Are you all safe?"

" _Yeah, we're in the TARDIS. Can I talk to him?"_

"Not right now," Jack replied.

" _I'm coming there."_

"No, you're not," he replied seriously. "Once we're ready we'll drive there."

" _But I could…"_

"Look after everyone else, Rose," he interrupted firmly.

She sighed.  _"Okay, bye."_

"We'll see you later," Jack replied, and hung up. He looked at the others, who were still staring at him, quite confused and in turn irritated, so he began to explain exactly where he'd been and what he'd been doing.

The usual parade of pointless questions came back at him, but thankfully were interrupted by Owen finishing up cleaning the last of the Doctor.

"Jack," he began.

"Yeah?"

"You know he's been shot in the stomach and the neck and he's completely paralysed from the waist down, right?" Owen wondered.

Jack nodded. "Don't suppose you can do anything about that?"

"Nope."

"Didn't think so," Jack muttered, staring at the Time Lord. "Can I do anything?"

"Yeah, wake him up," Owen replied.

Jack moved over to the Doctor's side, and rested a hand on the side of his face. Even before he'd opened his mouth to say anything the Doctor suddenly flinched, his eyes snapping open.

"That was easy," Jack muttered.

"Jack?" he asked in a murmur, dazed. "Where are we?"

"Back on the real Earth," Jack told him patiently. "Before you ask, no, I don't know how."

"We've got to get to London," the Doctor wheezed out, making to get up.

"Whoa, whoa," Owen said quickly. "You've been shot twice, you can't walk, you're probably malnourished, you look pretty much dead anyway and..."

"I don't mind," the Doctor assured him, reaching up to Jack to try and give the Captain a hint to help him up.

Jack grabbed him around the middle and pulled him up straight. "You sure about this?"

"Very," the Doctor insisted. "We need to get to London, right... now, I need the TARDIS, I need to... to save the others, or I'm going to..."

He passed out again.

"A what-dis?" Tosh asked, frowning.

"His ship, if he says he needs her then he does," Jack said urgently. "Now where the hell's the SUV?"

* * *

Rose had no idea what to do with herself. G'uj had collapsed shortly after 5pm, and now she was just waiting for the Doctor and Jack. Twiddling her thumbs. Finding things to waste time. She'd had a bath, coloured her hair, changed her clothes, changed them back, changed them again, watched the TV sightlessly for an hour and now she was just sat in the Infirmary, staring at the comatose aliens and watching them slowly die.

She nearly jumped out of her chair when Jackie came in with a plate of sandwiches and a cup of tea. She held out the plate to Rose.

"I'm not hungry," Rose muttered, holding up a hand.

"You've got to eat, sweetheart," Jackie told her firmly. "Now come on."

Rose swallowed, and eventually took the plate. She  _was_ hungry, but she didn't really feel like eating. She nibbled on the edge of one and forced herself to swallow anyway to keep her Mum happy.

"Any sign?" Rose wondered.

Jackie shook her head. "No, love."

"I'll phone them," she said quickly, about to get up but Jackie stopped her.

"No, you stay here and eat. It's been long enough, I bet they're drivin' up our road now, sweetheart."

Rose sighed. "You're right," she muttered, and took another unwilling bite.

"D'you need anythin'?" Jackie asked gently.

Rose shook her head. "No. Thanks, Mum," she added.

She nodded, kissing Rose on the forehead. "I'll go and look out for you."

The doorbell of the flat suddenly rang, constantly, insistently.

Rose and Jackie took one look at each other, and  _ran_.

* * *

They opened the door to Jack, obviously very tired, very hungry and very, very dishevelled. On his back seemingly completely comatose was the Doctor, looking very unwell.

"Oh god," Rose muttered as Jack groaned and eased the Time Lord to the floor, panting for breath.

"He just... collapsed," Jack gasped, trying to get his breath back. "I don't know..."

"I do," Rose muttered, grabbing the Doctor under the arms. "Mum, gimme a hand."

* * *

They got him into the Infirmary and onto the examination table where they tried to get most of the mud off of him, but at the rate he'd accumulated it a power-hose was probably the only thing that would get rid of it all.

Asides from being caked in mud, he didn't look too healthy either. The dark circles under his eyes were contrasting quite drastically against his pale skin; multiple bruises and cuts on a majority of his body. The worst part was the bullet wounds. The one in his neck was still there, but had healed over into a patch of skin to show exactly where it had entered. The one in his stomach was a lot more messy, but the quick fixes he'd done on the run seemed to have held up. At least the bullet had gone clean through.

"Doctor, Doctor wake up," Rose urged as they finished.

"Let me try," Jack suddenly said, finishing the cup of tea to move in. "I've got a trick."

"What?"

"I dunno, every time I touch his face he wakes up," Jack said, shrugging. "Magic fingers," he supposed, and poked the Doctor's cheek. True to his word, the Time Lord flinched and his eyes snapped open as he panted for breath. They flickered around, and he breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Doctor, the aliens are dyin'..."  _And so are you,_ Rose added afterwards in her head. "What do we do?!"

"Jack..." the Doctor gasped, reaching out an arm.

The Captain leant in. "What d'you need me to do?"

"Get a knife... and a jar..." he muttered. "Go under the... TARDIS, cut the green wire and... and let the fluid drip to fill half the jar. Give everyone half... millilitre... got that?"

"You want me to cut the TARDIS?"

"S'ok, I'll make it... up to her," the Doctor assured him, pulling a weak smile.

Jack nodded, and ran off.

Rose leant in for a hug, holding him carefully. "It's gonna be okay," she promised him, but he'd passed out again.

And as she looked up at the rest of aliens, the hope that had erupted inside of her quickly died again.

* * *

It took around four minutes to find the green wire.

Carefully, he nicked the side of it with a penknife, holding up a glass beaker to catch what fell out – a gold slimy substance, dripping slowly. The entire TARDIS shuddered, as though shocked by his action, and Jack knew instantly – this was the very essence of the TARDIS. Her life. This was what powered her. He was quite literally wounding her in order to save all these lives.

He knew it was justified, he knew this was an emergency, but somehow it still felt so awful. She was bleeding at his cut – bleeding this strange, beautiful golden slime that could only be right from her heart.

He felt so guilty that he ripped off a bit of his shirt to tie carefully around the cut in a bodge job until they could get around to fully repairing her. He whispered a quiet apology, and took the beaker of pure golden liquid back to the Infirmary – careful not to spill a single drop. This was beautiful, but dangerous stuff.

He reached the Infirmary to find the Doctor now on a bed, and all was quiet. At his entry Rose jumped onto her feet, holding out a fresh syringe.

"Here," she offered quickly, vacating her seat so he could sit next to the Doctor. He filled the syringe to half a millilitre, and reached up to touch the Doctor's face.

Right on cue, he woke up again, but the moment he saw the syringe next to his arm ready to be injected he shook his head.

"Stop," the Doctor rasped, barely able to get words out now.

"But..."

"Let... me... die..."

"What?!" Rose and Jackie shrieked in unison.

"Trust... me... please."

"But..." Jackie began, but Jack held up a hand.

"Do what he says. Rose, monitor his pulse," Jack ordered, taking the Doctor's arm and resting the needlepoint on a vein. "Tell me when it goes."

"Can't believe I'm doing this," Rose muttered, finding his pulse and the gentle throbs against her fingers.

"Do... others..." he grunted.

Jack nodded, beckoning Jackie to help him check the other aliens.

"Rose," the Doctor muttered.

"Yeah?" she asked softly.

"Smile," he said, pulling a tiny grin.

She couldn't help but giggle at him, despite the overwhelming threat of oncoming tears. "Shut up, this is serious."

"Nah," he replied.

"You're about to die," she pointed out.

"Minor... setback," he grunted.

She had to giggle at that.

"Made... you laugh," he murmured.

"I wasn't laughin'," she insisted, and then her eyes strayed down to his legs. "... Will this fix your legs?"

"No."

"That's okay."

"Is it?" he asked, gazing at her.

"Promised you I'd look after you, didn't I?" Rose said strongly, one hand still on his pulse. It was getting slower. "I don't care if they never work again."

"I do," he muttered.

She looked at him, lying there so wounded and broken. "Don't even think about regeneration."

"But..."

"If there's a chance they might heal then that's just a waste of a regeneration, right?" she pointed out. "There's plenty of stuff we can do instead of runnin'."

He suddenly shivered, his eyes almost rolling back in his skull. She kept her fingers firmly on his pulse, but he blinked and refocused, eyes flicking to her again.

"It hurts," he whined, still panting for air in strained gasps.

"I know," she said gently, resting a hand on his face. "When we're done here I'll run you a nice big bubbly bath and you can lounge in it for hours."

He looked at her. "With s-scented… candles?" he asked quietly.

"With scented candles," Rose confirmed.

"And y-ylang ylang… oil?"

"Yep, that too."

"And a… a rubber d-duck?"

"You can have  _three_ rubber ducks."

"And you... won't t-tell your… your Mum?"

"Not a word," Rose replied with a grin, looking at her mum who had raised an eyebrow.

"S-so gl-glad I... met you..." he gasped out.

"I know," she replied with a smile, but he couldn't even find the energy to laugh. She gazed at him sadly, one hand still on his pulse and the other now on his chest where she could feel his double heartbeat. "It's okay, you can let go," she whispered.

He laid there for a few moments, his breathing becoming more and more rasped. He finally closed his eyes, still breathing, until it reduced down to a few final pants – and stopped.

"Jack!" Rose yelled, panicked.

"Coming!" Jack called back, and within seconds he was by the Doctor's side with a fresh syringe in hand. He took the Doctor's arm and located a vein instantly, sliding it in and pressing down.

Nothing seemed to happen for a moment. Only pure silence. No one moved, spoke, or even dared to breathe... Until suddenly the Doctor's eyes snapped wide open and darted around the room for a moment.

"Wow, it worked. I'm hungry," he murmured, and then instantly fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deus ex Machina yayyy!


	23. Elvis and the Doctor's Pelvis

The Doctor woke up, blurry eyes focusing on a golden ceiling. He frowned, and made to get up, but his legs didn't respond. Just as he remembered why, Rose popped into his vision, beaming away happily.

"Where'm I?" he asked in a murmur.

"TARDIS," Rose replied. "How you feelin'?"

"Bleh," he replied, before his eye drifted a plate of cheese and ham sandwiches in her hand and a tired fingers strayed up to take one. Rose laughed and gave him the whole plate.

"Thanks," he mumbled, and tucked in. "How long have I been asleep?"

"About twelve hours," she told him. "The other aliens are up. Jack did some tests and they seem fine."

"Where are the others?" he asked through a mouthful.

"Doin' chores," she said, smiling. "You know the cooker you never got around to fixin'? Jux is fixin' it. G'uj is doing all our laundry, Kilo's tidying and Vanaj is in the botanical gardens."

He looked at her, frowning. "Gardens?"

"He's sortin' it out. I dunno, he said it needed a lot of work. Turns out he's a gardener."

"Really?"

"Really!" she confirmed, smiling. "Mum's doin' all the food and Jack's runnin' around checkin' up on all the people we got back. No stories have come out yet, though."

"What about Leo?" he asked.

"He's up, just sorta wanderin' around. Mum's lookin' after him in the flat."

"Good," he said, nodding.

"So what did you do?" Rose wondered. "The TARDIS stuff brought you back to life, yeah?"

"Lucky guess," the Doctor replied, breathing out through gritted teeth. "I assumed Zow's life machine worked by renewing the cells, like I do when I regenerate. That machine was complex and amazing – but had one defect. After it renews the cells they start to die again, so if you don't regularly use it like all the other aliens did your body starts to die. But before I used the TARDIS blood I had to clear the cell decline by letting it kill me. The blood was just a guess. I'll never be able to use that again."

"And how did you get back? The translation circuit went for a couple of minutes."

He shrugged. "No idea. I thought that was it."

"So did I," she said, her voice dropping to a murmur before raising it again. "Apparently you and Jack ended up on the Plass in Cardiff surrounded by people thinkin' you'd been mugged."

He smiled. "I probably looked like it too."

She leant in for a hug, which he reciprocated.

"What's wrong with you exactly? I mean, what's happened to paralyse you?" she wondered after they'd pulled away.

"The bullet must have gone right through my brain stem when it entered. Instant death. Then since my brain stem is pretty resilient the bullet fragmented and didn't have enough force to come out the other side. Zow must've got all the fragments out of my neck and repaired enough for me to breathe, talk and wave my arms before bringing me back to life... which is pretty impossible," he replied, and then looked at her seriously. "I need you to do something for me."

"What?" she asked.

"Go to the storage cupboard, and find the drawer marked EPT, and bring the thing inside it back out here."

"Okay," she replied, and made off. Two minutes she came back, holding a strange black device in her hand with two prongs on the end.

"What is this?" she asked, confused.

"Electrical Pulse Transmitter," he replied, and gestured for her to sit down on the bed. He took the device from her and fiddled with until it kicked into life with a low hum, and then gave it back. "I need you to use it on me."

"What? Why?" she asked, suddenly scared.

"For my legs. Electrical stimulation." He gestured to his neck. "Use the EPT on the bullet wound, three seconds and stop. Not before, not after."

"Is this gonna hurt you?" Rose asked seriously.

"Of course," he affirmed. "But that's good. Fire some electrical stimulation – maybe initiate some connections."

"You know I can't do that," she said quietly.

"It's okay," he assured her. "It'll help me."

"I'm not doing it," she said seriously. "You're mental if you think I am."

"Please," he begged. "I need to do  _something_. It's okay, really. I've set it quite low so I'll jolt a bit, but that's it. I'm not going to go flying or anything, and I'll keep my head straight."

"That's it?" she echoed as a question.

"And maybe yell," he added, shrugging slightly.

"Great," she sighed.

"Hey, you know I wouldn't ask you unless it was important. It'll be fine," he assured her, offering a small smile.

Rose sighed again, lengthily. "All right. Three seconds?"

"Yep!" he chimed, turning over so his back was facing her. "Count down."

"Okay," she muttered, and took an affirming breath with the device raised, the point hovering near the back of his neck. "Three... two... one... a half... a quarter..."

He cleared his throat loudly.

"Sorry," she said, biting her lip. "Three... two... one..."

She jabbed it forward, simultaneously snapping her eyes shut. She heard the bed move as he reacted, but he was obviously trying to keep quiet for her benefit. She counted the seconds by mouthing the numbers – trying desperately to concentrate on the seconds that passed rather than what she was doing.

When the seconds were up, she instantly drew the device away but didn't open her eyes until she heard the Doctor suddenly groan. Worried, she finally looked too see him leaning up on one elbow, staring at his legs.

"Not worked?" she asked, only to find her voice seemed to have died in her throat and she had to clear it and repeat the words. "Not worked?"

He didn't reply to that. "Grab a scalpel."

He had 'that' face on, so she did what she was told despite knowing already what was coming next. He didn't disappoint. He took the scalpel and ran it along his thigh in one swift movement. Instantly there was an oozing red line, but he hadn't flinched whatsoever.

For a long while he just stared at his leg, and the blood seeping out of it. He looked slightly disgusted by what he was seeing. Moments passed in utter silence, and Rose dared not to break it.

"... Did Jack bring the leg braces?" he finally asked, looking up at her.

"Yeah, but they're pretty wrecked," Rose told him.

"Get them."

"Okay," she nodded, and swept out of the door just as Jack came in, pushing a wheelchair.

He saw the Doctor and beamed. "Afternoon! How are you feeling?"

"I've been better," the Doctor muttered, still holding the scalpel. The blood was dripping down onto the sheets.

Jack saw this, but chose not to address it. "I brought you this," he said, nodding to the wheelchair. "G'uj found it, thought it might be useful until your legs get better."

The Doctor looked at it, and then looked quickly away. Jack quickly realised this wasn't going to just disappear.

"Look," Jack began with a sigh, taking some bandages and wipes from the nearby table and dropping down into the chair next to the bed. "I know this ain't practical, not for you, but you gotta make do."

"I can't live like this, not me, not my life," the Doctor muttered.

"You were told they'd get better so just stick it out," Jack replied, trying to clean up the Doctor's leg.

"For how long?" the Doctor wondered seriously. "Days? Weeks? Months? Years?"

"Doc, there are millions of people out there who would give anything to have an assurance that one day their legs are going to get better. Put it in perspective. It'd be a wasted regeneration, especially so close to your last."

The Doctor just stared at his legs as a reply to that. "... But what do I do?"

"So you live the quiet life for a while," Jack said, wiping at the blood. "It's not so bad. Stick around Earth. And don't think I didn't find all the UNIT records on you. You've done it before. So you want my advice?"

"What?"

"You've got the TARDIS, you've got Rose, and you've got the whole of Planet Earth. Sure, it's no Annia Minor, but there's a lot to do right here if only you look for it. Take Rose and spend some time with her. I'll get out of your way for now."

The Doctor finally looked up at him, his eyes fixed to his. He swallowed, and then nodded. "... Thank you," was all he said.

"You're welcome," Jack assured him, grinning.

"I just took advice from Jack Harkness," the Doctor realised, pulling a face.

Jack laughed, but any further conversation was interrupted by Rose coming in with a bundle of metal in her arms. She gave it to the Doctor, slightly apprehensive.

He checked them over for a moment – observing the rust, chips, dents and broken pieces of a metal contraption clearly  _far_  beyond repair.

"Well, they're broken," the Doctor finally surmised, and chucked them on the floor before reaching up to Rose. "Gimme a hand into the chair?"

She laughed, the tension suddenly gone. Together she and Jack manoeuvred him into the chair and he tested it, grabbing the wheels and pulling himself into a wheelie and doing a perfect spin before landing neatly back on all four wheels.

"Hmm, as good as I remember," he supposed, Jack and Rose staring at him in astonishment.

"Have you done this before?" Rose wondered seriously.

"Slight accident with Elvis and a trampoline..." the Doctor mused. "Broke my pelvis, wasn't fun, he bought me this wheelchair to say sorry. I couldn't stand up for a month."

"Liar," Rose accused, laughing.

"Really!" the Doctor insisted, grinning. "Elvis broke my pelvis."

She sighed in mock despair as Jack laughed.

* * *

Everyone ate together in the TARDIS kitchen for the first time, minus Jackie, who was looking after Leo in the flat.

The Doctor was particularly animated, explaining to the aliens what he had done with the TARDIS blood to save them, before adding that they were no longer immortal since the cell decay had been wiped. They had just moved onto the topic of what happened next, when Rose's phone began to ring - her mum.

"Sorry," she apologised, picking up the call. "Mum?"

Then Jack's phone began to ring. "It's Tosh, hold on," he said, and answered.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Something just happened."

He wasn't wrong. Simultaneously both Jack and Rose gasped, looked at each other, and then at the Doctor.

"What?" he asked, glancing between them.

"You got a TV in here?" Jack asked, but Rose was already turning it on and switching to BBC One where the news was on - a news flash.

_"... Citizens of the world are being urged to lock their doors and stay inside. This has now been declared an international emergency. Military forces are already mobilising across the world and nuclear weapons are reportedly being considered by the UN and NATO. I repeat; the centre of China is under attack, first reports and footage uploaded to the Internet appear to depict the attack is not of this world..."_

The Doctor swallowed, utterly horrified. "It's the aliens I brought back... This soon?!"

"K'ashi," Vanaj swore.

_"The death toll cannot be counted, but estimations project 200,000 dead since it began reportedly half an hour ago..."_

"Fulak!" Kilo yelled in alarm. "We've gotta stop this!"

Every body looked at the Doctor expectantly; waiting for a plan of action.

"I... can't," he realised lamely, looking down at his legs.

"I can," Kilo responded, standing up. "Doctor, have you got three morphic boxes?"

The Doctor looked at him, his eyebrows knotted in confusion. "Yes, but..."

"I've got nothing to go back to," Vanaj interrupted him. "Might as well do some good here."

"Me too," Kilo agreed.

Jux nodded too. "I will stay here for as long as I'm needed, and then I'll travel to my home planet to make amends," he said, ever calm.

"I'll help," G'uj suddenly said, jumping to his feet eagerly.

"No," Vanaj said, shaking his head. "G'uj, you should be back with your family."

G'uj's face dropped. "But I wanna…"

"Vanaj is right," Kilo said, resting a hand on the young alien's shoulder. "Go back to your parents. You're too young for this type of life."

Jux nodded. "Go and get your childhood back, G'uj. I would give anything to live my life again."

G'uj looked at them all, considering them. The people who had raised him, cared for him, given him a name. They were his family, and his only friends. He had always listened to them... and he wasn't going to stop listening now.

"Okay," he finally said, looking at the Doctor. "Take me home."

The Doctor nodded and smiled, grabbed his wheels and raced out the door with the TV still buzzing apocalypse in the background. Everyone followed him straight to the console room where he was already pulling out three black boxes from an under-compartment.

"They're fully charged, good for fourteen hours and then they need an hour recharge," he explained to the three, giving them one each in turn. "And..." He moved to the monitor and began to type. "There's 257 aliens that got through that are registered on the Shadow Proclamation database as highly dangerous," he announced.

"Easy, should keep us entertained for about a week," Kilo said, grinning.

"Thanks," the Doctor said sincerely.

"Least we could do," Vanaj said.

"We'll expect a lift afterwards," Kilo joked.

The Doctor grinned back at him. "Just get back here when you're finished."

"Will do," Kilo replied with a mock salute. "Let's go."

The Doctor began to wheel in a frenzy around the console, pushing buttons and pulling levers as the time machine began to take off. At the same time Vanaj, Jux and Kilo activated their morphic boxes, their alien forms instantaneously replaced by three humans.

"You look like a club bouncer," Rose told Jux, laughing.

He smiled briefly, and looked at the other two. Vanaj was a tall, handsome dark-haired man and Kilo had become a blond-haired man in his mid-twenties with no control over his hair.

"Never thought I'd be doing this," Vanaj admitted, running a hand through his hair and looking at his human fingers.

"You can say that again," Kilo agreed, and then experimentally stuck out his new tongue and tried to cross his eyes to look down at it.

G'uj was just laughing at them as the TARDIS landed with a small jolt, and the Doctor pushed himself over to them.

"China's outside, good luck," he said sincerely, putting out his hand to shake.

Vanaj took it. "Thanks. We'll see you in a while."

"You'd better," Rose replied, smiling.

Vanaj grinned at her, and reached in for a hug. "Look after yourself, and him."

"I will," she assured him.

"Doctor," Jux began, standing in front of him. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," the Doctor assured him.

"Not about that – about what you said."

The Doctor frowned. "What did I say?"

"I heard you when we were at the CPU," Jux told him. "I heard what you said."

"Oh," the Doctor realised flatly.

Jux smiled slightly. "To have gone through that... It makes my problems insignificant."

"They're not insignificant," the Doctor said seriously.

"In comparison to yours they are nothing," Jux replied. "Thank you."

The Doctor just nodded, and shook his outstretched hand.

"Be good, have fun, and maybe I'll see you again," Vanaj said to G'uj.

G'uj nodded, smiling. "I hope so."

"Bye, buddy," Kilo said next, ruffling his hair and grinning. G'uj indignantly patted it down, pulling a face.

"Good luck, kid," Jux said next, patting his shoulder. "You did a lot of good back there."

"Thank you," G'uj replied, just as Vanaj opened the door to reveal utter carnage outside. The aliens were attacking, and hard. The screams of dying humans were clear in amongst the cacophony of blasts from weapons and burst of bullets. Even the slice of the view they had they could see through the open doors showed a lot of fire.

"See ya," Vanaj yelled over his shoulder to the others, and charged out of the door with Kilo and Jux in tow. Jux shut the door behind him, and suddenly they were gripped in silence.

A silence lingered for a while, before the Doctor looked at G'uj and gave a half smile. "Ready to go home?"

G'uj nodded positively. "Let's go."


	24. Ordinary World

The Doctor very quickly found a match with G'uj's DNA in the database of Polanquia. The datafile was surprising to say the least. They all read it together.

Klil was his real name, Klil-Za. He had been reported as a missing child whilst holidaying on Earth, and the authorities had been unable to intervene with a level 5 planet. Klil had been labelled as missing presumed dead without even so much as investigation. The grieving parents had split up, and both of them had never had children again.

But the most important thing was there was a fixed address for the mother, updated extremely recently. So off they went in the TARDIS, straight there to park outside a Polanquian house-pod.

Rose took him out, G'uj holding her hand all the way to the house-pod front door. She pressed the keypad, and seconds later the door whooshed open to reveal a Polanquian woman who looked incredibly like G'uj. She instantly registered Rose.

"Human!" she realised, suddenly angry – but G'uj stopped anything that may have come after that with a single, whispered word.

"... Mother?"

The woman's eyes snapped to him, and for a moment she froze on the spot... Before her expression softened, her eyes lightened and she was hugging him tightly in absolute tears.

"Klil," she gasped through her sobs. "Klil, I don't believe it!"

G'uj pulled away from her, looking at her seriously. "My name's G'uj, now."

"Okay," she cried, and held him again. "You're G'uj. Your name's G'uj."

G'uj looked over his shoulder to look for Rose – she was already pulling away. He broke away from his mother and ran to her, grabbing her arm to stop her mid-step.

"Rose, you'll come see me, won't you?" he asked. "You and the Doctor and Jack?"

She smiled at him. "Of course we will. Now go to your Mum."

He broadened a smile, and eventually nodded. He let go of her hand and ran back to his mother who was still in floods of tears.

Seconds later the TARDIS began to churn, and disappeared.

* * *

They got back to the flat, where Jackie was waiting patiently.

"What's happenin'?" she asked before they could get word in.

"Sorted," the Doctor assured her. "And the aliens have gone. Where's Leo?"

"Living room," she told him. "He still don't have a bloody clue what's goin' on, it's like Gilderoy Lockhart in there. What're you gonna do?"

"Take him home," the Doctor replied, pushing through the front door into the living room. Jack and Rose followed.

"Hello, Leo," the Doctor began to the man sat on the sofa who was watching Eastenders intently.

Leo looked up and grinned. "Doctor!" he recognised.

The Doctor grinned back. "Yep. I'm just going to check you over, can you lie down a second for me?"

"Okay," Leo replied, and did so.

The Doctor wheeled forward a little more, checking his chest and pulse-rate. "Are you hurting anywhere?"

"My leg," Leo said, pointing down.

The Doctor checked it, seeing the two clear bullet wounds up Leo's leg, but the TARDIS' medical supplies seemed to have healed them to a good degree already.

"Don't worry, they'll clear up," the Doctor assured him. "I'm going to send you to sleep now, okay?"

"Why?"

"So I can take you home."

"But I like it here. It's nice," he protested.

"Yes, it's lovely, but you need to go back where you belong."

"Oh, okay," Leo said, and obediently closed his eyes.

The Doctor reached up to Leo's temples, and eased him down into a sleep. The Time Lord stayed still for a good few minutes, just searching through the other man's head.

When he drew back, he looked like he was about to laugh. "His memory's still there, right at the back. He's from Dorset. Anyone fancy a trip to the countryside?"

* * *

Jack carried an unconscious Leo into a play park somewhere in Dorset. He laid him gently on the ground next to a football pitch.

"Rose, call an ambulance, we're in a park in Dorchester," the Doctor ordered her.

"Did you get rid of his memory?" Jack wondered.

The Doctor nodded. "I completely wiped all his memory of Jackie's flat. We're in the year 1997 at the moment, in June, about a week after he went missing."

"You mean he was in that world for nine years?" Jack asked.

The Doctor nodded again.

"Won't people notice he's aged?"

The Doctor laughed. "Oh no, he'll just go greyer a bit earlier, that's all. Plus he's been missing for a week; he's entitled to look a little rougher than they'll remember him."

"They're on their way," Rose said, moving back to them. "So who is he, anyway?"

"Leo Warren, previously 26 now 35. He's a Primary school teacher for a Year Two class of seven-year-olds, just over there." He pointed through the trees with a thumb.

Rose stared at him. "No way!"

"Yes way!" the Doctor replied happily. "His wife is pregnant after in-vitro, and is due in the autumn. Otherwise, he has two adopted children named Kallie and Michael. He's been missing in this timeline for about a week, and should wake up with no memory of what happened to him."

"That's unbelievable," Rose muttered, staring at Leo.

"We all react differently to fear," the Doctor pointed out. "Getting taken out this place, his home, his comfy life and getting dumped in that world... It's no wonder he did what he did. He was terrified, and he reacted to it in the worst way possible. But he should be okay now. He'll slowly start to recover his memories of his life before that world – he might get a few bad dreams and flashbacks but he'll put it down to something else. You humans are like that."

"What d'you think the others will say?" Rose wondered. "I mean, the other ones you brought back?"

"They've all been put back where they were taken from; time and place. Their memories are fully in tact, but they'll just become another name in a long page of conspiracy theorists. But the dead I couldn't bring back. They would have transported back to their time already dead..." he finished in a dull murmur.

"Can't save everyone," Jack reminded him seriously.

"I know," the Doctor replied, but didn't sound in any way reassured.

* * *

"Well, think I'll be off too," Jack announced the instant they piled back into Jackie's flat. "Take care, don't do anything I wouldn't and all that."

"You're not stayin'?" Rose asked, confused.

"Not at the moment," Jack said. "I've got a team to run, and they were lost without me. Gotta get back and sort it out."

"Oh," Rose muttered, disappointed.

He grinned at her. "Oh Rosie," he said, leaning forward to hug her. "Come find me later and I'll come with you."

"You'd better," she said, smiling.

He moved to the Doctor next, giving him a snog and a hug. "Bye, Doc. Look after yourself. And good luck," he added. The Doctor instantaneously turned a bright shade of pink. Jack just laughed and winked before moving to Jackie.

"Ms Tyler! Couldn't have done it without you," he said, grabbing her for another snog. She almost fainted on the spot, left in a haze of awe as he let go and swept towards the door.

"Bye guys!" he yelled over his shoulder, and within moments he was gone.

"Well, I guess that's that then," Rose said, looking at the Doctor.

"Not yet," he said, and wheeled back into the TARDIS. "One last thing, gotta go back to the Lake District."

* * *

Rose stepped out into the Lake District, shortly followed by the Doctor.

She sighed breathily. "Hopin' never to see this place again."

"Just checking the hominids made it through safely," he said, holding out his hand to her. "Phone."

"Please," Rose added, rolling her eyes as she handed it over.

He just beamed and whipped out his sonic, buzzing the device and holding it up to the sky.

The radio crackled and tuned in.  _"_ _You fill up my senses, come fill me again..."_

"Yes!" the Doctor cried, beaming. "Told them to put on this album."

"They're alive!" Rose realised, grinning with him.

He nodded, staring at the phone for a moment.  _"Come let me love you. Let me give my life to you. Let me drown in your laughter. Let me die in your arms."_

"Doctor?" she urged. "I'm freezin', let's get inside."

In reply he just turned up the volume, still not looking at her.

_"Let me lay down beside you. Let me always be with you. Come let me love you, come love me again."_

"Are you..."

_"You fill up my senses, like a night in a forest. Like the mountains in springtime. Like a walk in the rain. Like a storm in the desert. ... Like a sleepy blue ocean... You fill up my senses... Come fill me again."_

"... That's the cheesiest way I've been asked out on a date ever," she joked.

He smiled a little, but still didn't look at her. "... Is that a yes?"

She stared at him. No, this wasn't real. Was he following the joke through? He wasn't serious. he couldn't be. That would be ridiculous.

So she forced a laugh - it came out like the lamest laugh ever heard in the history of the world - sort of weak, sort of pathetic, but mostly unconvincing.

At the sound of the worst laugh in history, the Doctor looked up at her slowly, his eyes wide. From his face alone, she knew he was serious. But she couldn't leap to make that assumption; mostly because she just couldn't believe it.

"You're jokin'," she whispered.

"No," he whispered back with utter sincerity.

She didn't say anything to that, just stared at him in complete disbelief.

"I'm sorry," he suddenly blurted out, instantly turning redder than Mars. He was about to unlock his wheels and career as fast as possible down the mountain to hopefully impale himself on something at 70 mph and die so he'd never have to talk to her again, when she dived onto him in a huge hug.

"It's okay," she practically squeaked, holding him tightly. "It's really okay."

"Good okay or bad okay?" he asked, still tense.

"Good okay?! It's bloody brilliant okay," she laughed. "Really. I just can't believe you said it."

"Neither can I," he confessed.

She laughed again, utterly elated. She drew back from the hug and instead took his hands, squeezing them gently.

"Mum's gonna have kittens," she realised.

"Oh, don't think she will," the Doctor mused, looking to a point over Rose's shoulder. Rose frowned, looking back to see her mum standing in the TARDIS doorway; her hands clasped together and a huge unbreakable smile on her face.

"Mum?!" Rose gasped. "How long have you been-"

"I'm not 'ere!" Jackie insisted, waving her hands. "Carry on!"

Rose smiled, looking back at him. "What are we gonna do?"

"Hmm?"

"We can't really get back to runnin', not with your legs like that," she pointed out.

"No," he mused. "Well, I suppose we'll just have to stick here a while."

"You mean... in London?" she asked, somewhat surprised.

"Well, we could go to Norfolk if you wanted."

She laughed. "I'd prefer somethin' else. But not here again, please."

He laughed with her. "Yeah, seen enough of this place for a while."

"Trouble is, compared to the worlds out there, this place is so borin'."

"Nah," the Doctor dismissed. "Plenty of stuff right here to see."

"Yeah, right," she scoffed.

He paused, musing for a moment. "... Ever been on the Orient Express?"

Her eyes widened. "No..."

"How about the Northern Lights? Ever seen them?"

"No..."

"The Pyramids of Giza?"

"No..."

"The Thrihnukagigur volcano? The rock face city of Petra? The Taj Mahal?"

"Okay, okay!"

"Or how about Machu Picchu? Or the Colosseum, Ben Nevis, the plains of Africa, the 'Door to Hell' in Turkmenistan, the tip of Mount Roraima, the Great Dune of Pyla..."

"I get it!"

"Rotorua, Mesa Verde, Easter Island, the Great Wall of China, the Iguazu Falls, the Louvre, the Temple of the Peaceful Dragon, the Valley of the Kings, Venice, the Amazon Rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef, the Galapagos Islands..."

"Doctor!"

He finally looked at her, pretending to be affronted. "I'm not even halfway!"

She laughed. "You're right. This place isn't so bad."

"Nope, and maybe it's time I showed you a bit of it," he replied. "You humans don't give this place enough credit you know, it's absolutely beautiful."

"So where first?" she asked, smiling.

"How about tomorrow we set off, watch the sunrise over Urulu with breakfast, get a pampering in Iceland's Blue Lagoon Geothermal Spa, head to Paris for lunch where we can have a look around at the Arc du Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower plus whatever catches our eye, have dinner in the Noma restaurant and then head over to the Caribbean, grab a cocktail and watch the sunset?"

"Perfect," she responded. "Geez, I'd better get some sleep."

He laughed. "This'll be fun."

"Really?" she asked. "I thought you needed an alien invasion every day else you weren't very happy."

He laughed again. "Nah. My legs need a break, and I think I need a break. Let's just... travel. Have fun."

"Yeah," she said, and then thought for a moment before summoning up the courage to utter the three, immortal words, "I love you."

"I know," he replied with a grin, and she groaned in exasperation. The Doctor just beamed, reached up to cup her cheek, and kissed her intensely. She responded in kind, and suddenly everything seemed like it should be. Everything was normal. This was how things were meant to be. This was the ordinary world they'd been trying to find for so long, and everything finally felt right.

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TenRose. It happened. I couldn't stop it. AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER :o


End file.
